Forged in Ice
by Veltzeh
Summary: Envy goes to search for itself in Fort Briggs. Expect some scientific exploration of shapeshifting. (Suomenkielinen versio on Jäästä tehty.)
1. Survival

**Author notes:** This story assumes that readers know what happens in the Fullmetal Alchemist manga (or the 2009 anime version, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood). I refer to Envy as "it" in the narration. This story is for non-commercial entertainment purposes only. Fullmetal Alchemist and the characters from it belong to Hiromu Arakawa.

#-#

Edward Elric held the tiny parasitic Envy inside his automail hand. Scar stood next to him, and a couple of metres away were Colonel Roy Mustang and First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye. He was sitting quietly on the floor of the maintenance tunnel and she was keeping her rifle ready.

With its mind blown, Envy quivered at seeing the four of them unaffected by its words. In what kind of world could they work together?

"Envy, you..." started Ed. "You're envious of humans. We are so much more fragile than you homunculi, but even when we're down, beaten and the situation seems hopeless, we just get up again. And if we can't, our friends help us up."

Envy stared at him with one of its unproportionally huge eyes. He looked like something between inconvenienced and sad. It could have been an expression of pity. Envy hated seeing it and wanted it to stop immediately.

"You can never have that, and it's made you envious of us," added Ed.

Envy stayed completely still and yet boiled inside. The pint-sized brat had figured out its problem and spelled it out. If there was something more humiliating than this, Envy would never want to hear it. It wanted to deny him. "Who says I can't have that?" it screamed violently.

"That mirror would've been handy, truly," remarked Ed, and to Envy's relief, his expression and tone turned angrier. "It's literally in your name. Why in heck would your Father create creatures that embody the cardinal sins of humanity, doomed forever to be trapped within their worst emotions? What did he try to accomplish by making you homunculi? Did HE want a family or friends? Does he even treat you like family or does he just use you and throw you away if he thinks you're not good enough?"

Envy stopped everything momentarily as Ed's questions hit its mind. It thought hard and could not find a reason why Father had given it such hideous emotions and form. Did that mean that the homunculi were just leftover scum of his Philosopher's Stone and that their only purpose was to be used? Of course, he did replenish their stones occasionally, but that might have been because it was more convenient to keep the old one if it was not completely destroyed yet. Envy's concentration loosened for a while, but as it looked at Mustang and remembered what had happened to Lust, other thoughts hit it. Lust had not been revenged, and both Wrath and Father had deemed it unnecessary. The Flame Alchemist might have been too important to be killed, but why could they have not killed at least some of his friends? Why had they killed other insignificant humans before, but not that time? Did Father not care about Lust? He had not even created another Lust. Did he intend to get rid of the rest of the homunculi as well after his plan had succeeded? Envy boiled. There was not much, if any, evidence for Father's love. "Ahhh!" it screamed in frustration and squirmed inside Ed's hand. "You pipsqueak!" Offended, Ed bared his teeth, growled and squeezed Envy. "Ow! Hurts!"

"Maggot! Did you finally realise he doesn't give a darn about you lot?" shouted Ed. "You asked if 'you can't have that', so apparently you don't have it now, do you?" Envy quivered, staring at the hand that held it with resentful defiance. "Thought so! And how about the rest of your so-called family? Did you know that Pride just ATE Gluttony to gain his sense of smell?"

"He what?" Envy shook even more. "That little prick!" Yet, eating Gluttony was pretty much exactly what Pride would and could do.

"Even Greeng defected the lot of you – again! Greed, I mean."

Envy would not hear such nonsense. It would prove that it was better than the humans, instead of being just different, with different strengths and weaknesses. Weaker it was not, that much was obvious in its opinion. "You'll see, I will have what you have!"

"You won't. This has gone on long enough," said Hawkeye and aimed her rifle at Ed's feet, on a spot that was directly below Ed's right fist. "Drop him and I'll finish this."

Envy felt the mortal danger sting its little form. A moment ago it had felt like killing itself, but now it had realised that it could still try to do something to be better than these disgusting humans. It could even be better than Father. "No!" it shouted. It was the first time Envy truly and honestly asked to be spared, even if indirectly. Ed had not even started letting go.

"No? As if," remarked Scar. Envy glared at him and shook.

"Edward...?" said Hawkeye expectantly.

Ed looked first at Hawkeye and then at Envy. He loosened his grip very slightly, not even noticeably yet. Envy pulled nearly its whole body inside his fist. Ed's expression grew more and more serious until he cracked a weak half-smile. "What can you give us in exchange for your life?"

"Fullmetal, WHAT?" shouted Mustang suddenly and stood up, his hand rising up to aim. Both Scar and Hawkeye stared at Ed intently. They agreed with Mustang.

Ed smirked more visibly now. "Our three parties overcame our differences, and there's also Greed. Who's to say we can't add him? Provided he CAN present us with something that will earn our trust. And that's going to be A LOT, you little psychopath!" he snapped at Envy.

Envy opened one of its big eyes and stared at Ed from inside his fist. His reaction told it that it might just survive this. All it had to do was to convince them to let it live now. "...What do you want to know?"

"How can we ruin your Father's plans?"

Envy pushed its head out of Ed's fist. It was not quite ready to directly betray Father yet. Watching Mustang, it realised Father still needed the fifth sacrifice. "The best way would be to destroy the underground circle, but it's well made, Pride is guarding it and you're almost out of time. Also, on the way to Father's room, near the room with all those the legless lesser homunculi, there's a room where a doctor waits, with the surviving führer candidates. Father needs the fifth sacrifice, so make sure he won't force Mustang to perform human transmutation."

"Ha, he's not going to do that," said Edward dismissively.

"Not even to save his girlfr– – 'dearest subordinate', was it?" Mustang's face turned dim again. "Well, I've warned you now!" it said, well aware that its warning was really an indirect invitation that would lead Mustang to the place where Father could force him to perform the transmutation if he would not do it on his own.

"Don't try to think that's enough! What are these führer candidates?"

"They're quite a lot like the Führer himself. Elite soldiers with Philosopher's Stone in them. You've heard how Brat Bradley was made, right?"

"Right... How is he going to exactly 'use' us as his sacrifices?"

"He needs direct access to your Gates. Past that, it's an alchemical transmutation, and I'm not an alchemist so I can't say anything about that. He needs you all with him and I know he can yank you in from wherever you are, so you can't stop that except by leaving the country, and it's far too late for that. Or killing yourself."

Ed looked annoyed. "Darnit... Hey, you're not able to possess your Father, are you?" Envy glared at the boy as if he had said that he will turn the whole planet's inhabitants into Philosopher's Stone. Scar, Mustang and Hawkeye had similar expressions.

"Don't be ridiculous!" said Envy agitatedly. "I was a part of him and he would just absorb me right back into him to add some more to his power! Maybe if I had a Philosopher's Stone more powerful than him... But that would be even more ridiculous."

For a split second, Edward actually considered feeding Envy his own father of a Philosopher's Stone, but even the old man was more reliable than this little parasite, hands down, and probably more effective against Father too.

Envy knew that it was heading into a dead-end, so it addressed the issue of its usefulness itself, before the others voiced more questions. "Okay, so I might not be very useful to you right now, but I'm not dangerous either. You can find a use for me later."

"And in the meantime we'll just let you go? Even I'm not that idealistically naïve!"

"Geez, look around yourself. There's nothing here. It's impossible to get anywhere since all ways out are either down where there's water, or up where I can't go because I'm too small to reach the climbing steps!" Edward grinned rather triumphantly when he heard Envy call itself small. He felt tall and mighty. "The only option is to wander right here where you can leave me until you come to get me again."

"What use is a little larva of a homunculus? You'd be executed for your murders anyway," commented Scar.

"Oh yeah? Just like you! And you! And you!" snapped Envy, pointing at Scar, Mustang and Hawkeye each in turn. "I'm sure the dead state alchemists and Ishvalans would agree!" Mustang twitched again, but Hawkeye grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back slightly. "Or will you be let off the hook if you win, just for being winners? You get a second chance. Why shouldn't I?"

"Second chance at killing us and creating more inhumane mayhem?" gritted Mustang.

Envy was quiet for a moment. The truth was that its first goal would be to kill them, but it would need to say something else. Still, it would not stoop so down as to lick their shoes with truly transparent lies. "Why, that would certainly be satisfying. But don't you think it would be detrimental for my attempt to have some true friendship and trust?"

"You can't seriously think you're capable of that." Mustang's tone was callous.

"Well if you kill me, you'll never know! I'll show you!" shouted Envy. "Are you trying to create mutual trust by being unnecessarily cruel here, or what? Besides, I might have murdered your friend, but you murdered mine. Doesn't that make us even, even if either of us will never forget that?"

"You? You had a friend? 'Friend'?" scoffed Mustang coldly and was certainly not amused in any way.

Envy flailed its little limbs and glared daggers at Mustang. "Don't tell me you don't remember her! You burned her to death, just like you were going to burn me! Lust!" Mustang stared at Envy with marginally disgusted surprise.

"You ...actually cared for Lust?" said Ed.

Envy felt incredibly uneasy about the situation. This would be the first time for it to directly admit that it had really appreciated Lust in a certain kind of way. It saw how the admission would alter the humans' opinion of it. "Yes!" it shouted angrily. Even though it was logical to answer with the truth in this case, Envy would not have wanted to reveal that it had such emotions. Then again, that emotion was probably just what inspired friendship and trust in humans. Could it really work for homunculi as well? Envy would have liked to think that it was above such feelings but just was not sure right now. The feeling remained and just made it angry at Mustang again. "You pyromaniac murderer! Taking away my friend!" it hissed and twitched. Ed squeezed it again. "Ow, hurts!"

"Calm down!"

Mustang spoke partly over both Envy and Ed, pointing at Envy with his hand again. "Liar! Pretender! Don't talk about your homunculus partner in crime as if she was your 'friend'. You monsters can't have friends, it's just deceit." He twitched, Envy took more cover inside Ed's hand again, and Ed actually moved his hand off from the Colonel's aim, even if Mustang just moved his own hand to keep the aim.

"Colonel, you calm down!" said Ed. Hawkeye still held onto Mustang's shoulder but did not pull him in one direction or another. "You might be wrong, anyhow. Gluttony was massively upset about Lust's death, if you don't remember. That was pretty much why he swallowed me back then."

"Unbelievable," mumbled Mustang as he stared at Edward with his nearly murderous eyes.

"And another point is that there really is nothing here that Envy could use to become a threat to us," said Ed, but turned to look at Envy inquiringly again. "Or is there?"

Something that even Envy knew was a beneficial trait was its ability to get over its feelings quickly, at least in some cases. "No. This part is so low that there's nothing but sewer down here." It paused. "And rats. Okay, rats, not much of an improvement upon this form. I still couldn't reach the steps unless I found a giant rat."

Scar was already envisioning Envy as a shaggy rat and liked the sight.

Ed looked sternly at Envy. "You know what, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt."

Mustang's arm shook as he glared at the little parasite. "You can't be serious...!" He gave a glance at Scar.

Scar was not happy with Edward's words. Nevertheless, he did not seem like he would deny Ed his act of mercy. "I think letting him live is foolish." Scar turned to look at Ed. "But if you really think he can be of some use, have it your way. He's harmless enough now."

Mustang stared at Scar with his mouth partially open. He turned to look at Hawkeye who was not aiming with her rifle but did hold it at the ready.

Hawkeye did not look like she agreed with Edward either. "I do hope your kindness doesn't cost our lives." She lifted the rifle into a carrying position over her shoulder. She turned to face Mustang and saw how intently and bewilderedly Mustang was looking at her now. "Sir? I think we all know that thing deserves death, but wouldn't it be good if we can use him for our purposes before that?" Mustang was quiet now and looked at the floor. "Let's leave him here. Edward, could you make a some kind of cage for him so that he won't escape?"

"Good idea, First Lieutenant. Here, Scar, hold him. In your right hand." Edward gave Envy to Scar who held it by the tail.

Envy was about to start boiling again. It did not want to be stuck in a cage. It needed to find more mannequin soldiers to replenish its Philosopher's Stone. Edward clapped his hands together and was about the touch the floor.

"Not on the floor! If this tunnel is flooded, I'll drown!"

Ed gave Envy a sideways glance. "You're worrying about that? If this tunnel is flooded, it won't matter if you're on the ceiling! Though, an air bubble would work... fine." Ed slapped the tunnel wall next to him and a semi-circular mound appeared on it, with a tiny hole near the bottom and a bigger one at the top. "Drop him in and I'll seal it." Scar stuffed Envy inside the little prison.

"Aah! Don't put me in there! ...You better not forget me here!" it shouted as it dropped to the bottom of the small enclosure.

Edward sealed the enclosure's top. "Hmm, I guess we need some way to find back here..."

"...Are you KIDDING me?" shouted Envy from inside its prison. "Just follow the burn marks! And if that's not enough, those blasted Xingese morons can just pinpoint me!"

"Well I guess that settles that," remarked Ed. "Let's go."

The four headed back. They did not completely retrace their path since they had not walked through the tunnels in a straightforward fashion.

"Edward, are you sure about letting that thing live?" asked Hawkeye once they were out of Envy's earshot.

Scar spoke before Ed had a chance to reply. "I think he should die for the crimes he committed."

Ed gave Hawkeye a glance. "Not really. But I don't like killing anyone and he's not going to go anywhere from there."

"If we're going to get this handled in a justified manner, he'll end up in front of a firing squad anyway," said Hawkeye.

"And you three won't?"

"Why are you trying to use his flawed logic to us?" snapped Mustang.

"The truth is that history is written by the victors. We need to keep this country from collapsing, and executing us won't help with that," continued Hawkeye.

"Are you saying we should make Envy confess and then execute the helpless tiny worm? That would just look bad," said Ed.

"What other use could that ugly maggot be?" asked Scar.

"I don't know, maybe he can search for survivors in ruins or something."

"You seriously think he will do that?"

"No, but I guess he'll have to if he wants to survive. Will you shut up about this already, we have more important things to worry about than thinking up possible uses for a useless homunculus right now!"


	2. The Basis of Change

Envy grumbled as it tried to dig bigger the small air hole at the bottom of its a small dome of a prison. Of course the hole was too hard to be broken so easily. "Darnit, I was supposed to go around looking for more of those brainless mannequin soldiers," it thought to itself and gave up on trying to break out. "I could still kill myself. They'd spend an eternity trying to find me, heh heh... but I wouldn't be able to see their faces if I did that. What's that sound?" Envy heard rustling and skittering about from inside the wall. "Rats... Splendid, just great. When things couldn't get any worse. But but, maybe I can get out of here using them!" It started feeling along the wall. If it could hear the rats moving inside the wall, then the wall must be weak. It felt some cracks and structural damage, but no holes big enough for it to pass through. It then climbed on the wall to feel the parts that were higher up, though it had to be very careful in order to stay on the rough wall.

To Envy's great delight, it did find a hole just big enough for it to move through, and so it squeezed itself into the crack and promptly faced an angry rat that did not approve of anything trespassing its tunnels. It struck its teeth right into one of Envy's four little arms. "Aahhh! You miserable little vermin!" shouted Envy as it twisted itself on the rat and took control of it. "Freeeeedom!" With that, Envy hurried into the rat tunnels that spun before it.

Envy spent a long while until it found its way out of the rat tunnels and was harassed by no less than five other rats that hated it unconditionally. After finally coming out into the larger tunnels, it spent time trying to find some mannequin soldiers until it was driven out and upwards by a large rat community. As it discovered, one useful thing about rat tunnels was that they spanned several levels.

On the upper level, Envy finally found some mannequin soldiers. It abandoned the rat and seized one and assimilated the second mannequin soldier. No other ones were in sight and Envy wondered what it could do with just two assimilated dolls. It did not think about that for long but started running, searching for more.

Envy ran into a few more stray mannequin soldiers and pulled them into its body as well. Their Philosopher's Stone and mass was not quite enough to restore the full size of its true form, but at least it could shapeshift relatively easily now. Thus it did so, taking its preferred form once again and smiling with satisfaction. Envy continued its search, but apparently very few mannequin soldiers had strayed from their general path. Finally Envy concluded that it would be best to go and absorb the barely living soldiers that Mustang had partly burned. By now it was rather far away from the room they were in, so it had to backtrack. Luckily it knew the tunnels rather well, though some of them were in ruins by now.

A little time after it had turned back, Envy felt some kind of energy flowing outward from the direction of Father's room and pulling slightly on the energy of the souls inside its newly replenished Philosopher's Stone. Envy grinned magnificently; it meant that Father must have succeeded in his plan. Envy hurried toward his room.

Envy finally made it to the large room where the incapacitated mannequin soldiers were crawling around. Some of them had started squirming off into the tunnels. "Ahh, you poor things are better off with me." Having said that, Envy started pulling the broken bodies into itself and even went to look for more of the escaped ones. After it had descended into a shaft that had a bunch of mannequin soldiers at its bottom, Envy felt another wave of energy. This time it was not sure what manner of effect it was, but the flow felt like energy was being released and was worrisomely similar to the previous one. Had Father somehow lost the souls of Amestrians?

Envy had assimilated all the mannequin soldiers it had found and started now heading upwards to the headquarters building. On the way, it discovered that much of it had collapsed. It spent a while finding a way through, but finally emerged atop some rubble near the courtyard where it could see a massive battle taking place. Envy quickly changed its eyes extremely far-sighted so that it could see the situation clearly, and what it saw thoroughly shocked it.

Though Father had a new form, Envy recognised it. He seemed to be desperately sucking the Philosopher's Stone out of Greed and was succeeding. However, for some reason, Father did not like what was happening and spit the most of Greed right out. Greed's bodiless form and energy quickly vanished into the air. Envy's shock just grew. Father's body crumbled, and Edward struck his fist right through his body. The Fullmetal Alchemist had his own right arm back!

Father crumbled more as he fell down. He turned his head toward Envy's location and stared right at it, with eyes that showed clearly how much he craved its Philosopher's Stone right now. Long black tendril arms appeared from the large hole in his torso and pulled his body in. He subsequently imploded, vanishing entirely unto himself.

The whole short series of events was over so fast that Envy thought it could have neither helped Father nor tried to assimilate him. Now it could do nothing but stare with its mouth wide open. It dropped to the ground and sat behind a nearby pillar that was still stable. How in the world could this have happened? What would it do now?

The first bitter realisation dug into Envy's mind as it figured out that if it was ever going to have more Philosopher's Stone, it would need humans to make the Stone. That thought was enough to turn its thoughts back to suicide, but the desire for survival still came on top; it did have a decent amount of the Red Stone now and would outlive the nations or at the least tens of generations of people if it made sure to not use its Stone any more than necessary. Restricting its use of the Stone meant that it needed to both work with the humans and make sure that they did not try to kill it. Humanity would always eventually produce more people who were desperate enough to try and create a Philosopher's Stone, though it might take quite a while until this incident would fall into the obscurity of history.

Envy thought about its troublesome predicament until the situation in the courtyard started settling down. Of course, it did not exactly follow what was going on. The next thing that emerged outside of its own thoughts was a man who looked almost exactly like Father, and for a fraction of a second, Envy thought that it was him.

"...No, you're that other thing," it said, distantly and disappointedly.

"Ah, I see, you're one of his 'aspects', aren't you? Who is left now... Envy?" Envy did not reply. "I am slightly curious as to what you're doing."

"Wondering whether I should kill you."

"Ah, that would be... rather pointless, in fact. I really don't have much time left. What's left of my Stone is almost depleted."

The man did look the part. Alchemical cracks and flaws were very apparent on his skin. "Well then, humour me; what should I do? You're Van Hohenheim, right, and the little Fullmetal Bean is your son. He still hates you, right?"

"You're right on that, even if I wish the matter wasn't so. I had my chance at happiness and pretty much wasted it. I suppose you don't have much choice but to live with all these humans you hate, isn't that so?"

Envy stayed silent first, but then went on a tangent since it thought it would be interesting to see what the duplicate of Father would say. "That son of a bitch of yours had the audacity to figure out what lies behind Envy. There's no point in shutting up about it now, is there? The little shrimp is going to blab about it anyway, or then those others are. It's a pain to admit, but sure, I'm envious of the way those idiotic humans can throw aside their differences, trust each other and make friends. I want to have that too." Even if telling about its issue was rather humiliating and not easy, it was easier than hearing it from its enemies. It glared at Hohenheim and added a threat that it let trail off. "One word about how we homunculi supposedly couldn't..."

"I don't think homunculi are incapable of friendship; I was close by when that Pride child ate Gluttony, who was rather upset and called for Lust to help him. Even Ed said they were close." Envy looked away and seemed rather angry. "I imagine you cared about Lust and Gluttony too. Anyway, you're the only one left now."

Hohenheim's words implied that in addition to Lust, Gluttony and Greed, now also Pride, Wrath and Sloth had died. "...What? You managed to kill ALL of them?" it asked with some hostility and plenty of contempt. It was shocked, even if it had never really liked Pride or Wrath, and Sloth had been just boring.

"Well, I didn't do it, but that's what I heard."

"Way to take away the little family I had." Envy then realised that if it was the only homunculus left, it would have to accept a human as its trusting friend counterpart if it was going to achieve its goal. That made it rethink the goal, but it could not decide one way or the other. It needed to prove that it could be better than humans, but to do that with the help of a human would be awful and humiliating. It leaned its face on its hands and sighed.

"That's what your Father was doing to humans. The Truth and its law of Equivalent Exchange is a karmic bastard, wouldn't you say? I finally have a chance to spend even a little time with my boys and here I am, heading to their mother's grave instead. But enough about me... You asked me to come up with something you could do, wasn't that so? That is, if you don't mind advice from an old almost-human like me."

"Whatever."

Hohenheim gave Envy a glance. "All right then. Let's assume first that you would try to live with humans..."

The exposition itself made Envy think. Was its only option to try to live with the disgusting humans? If it ran away, the cursed Flame Alchemist would surely come after it to extract revenge or send his goons to do that. Then again, his goons alone would not stand a chance against Envy – or would they? Against all possible odds, the humans were for some inexplicable reason working together now and had managed to beat Father who was the most powerful of them all. It dawned on Envy that the homunculi had never acted as a true team, at least in a fight. The closest was the group of it, Lust and Gluttony, but only it remained now.

Meanwhile, Hohenheim just continued talking. "It's pretty clear that you homunculi hate humans for some reason or another. It would be useful to overcome that, but that's not the only way. You don't really need to stop hating them, you just need to fake non-hatred. Some humans might see through it, but that's just some humans, you can ignore them. That's one of the great things with some silly humans, sometimes nothing riles them more than just ignoring them. Acknowledging and insulting them tends to lead to an escalating insult fest that can only end badly. Hidden insults work better, like ignoring and being smarter. You must be rather old and so you know a lot of things? Good, good. The nice thing about hidden insults and ignoring is that it doesn't leave the receiving side anything real to get worked up about."

Hohenheim's idea about aggravating humans by ignoring them was not exactly new to Envy. What caught its attention more was that it and Hohenheim were indeed the oldest human-like creatures in the world at the moment. When Hohenheim died, Envy would be the oldest. That sounded like something for which humans would envy it. It stopped actively listening as it thought the idea further. It could turn the tables right around if it could make humans truly envy it. Envy felt that achieving that was desirable.

Hohenheim did not seem to care if Envy listened; he knew the words went in. However, now that he saw that it was not paying too much attention, he spoke more directly. "What was that you wanted... to have a friend who would truly trust you? Now you'd unfortunately need to settle for a human, and making friends with them is toilsome, to say the least. They can be awfully petty and seem like they're undeserving of any kind of attention. Of course, with the help of a good friend, they would change! But their very attitude pushes away potential friends. Humans are usually weak when alone, and even in a group they act mostly according to the whim of the stupidest one among them. But sometimes someone smarter manages to take the lead, and that's when progressive things start happening and they can make all kinds of friends. Anyway, there are so many humans that I'm sure you can find some that even you can like. It must be difficult to think you could like any humans, but well, you can change and become better than those humans who managed to work together, if you'd rather think of it that way. Even if you think they're lower lifeforms, you can appreciate them as such. Like humans appreciate all the animals that they eat. Or should appreciate. Of course, it's not a good idea to state directly that you think humans are a lower lifeform. Some of them have awfully touchy egos. Letting them live in ambiguity works better."

Envy was stuck on imagining how it could possibly live with the humans and tolerate them and their repulsive ways. Of course, there were ways for it to cause damage and have some fun with practically no chance of getting caught, but that meant that it could never boast about its doings. Now that it thought about it, most of its failures had been caused by its excessive gloating. When it had Marcoh, it could have just knocked him unconscious, ran straight for the Ishvalan slum, taken a few nice Stone ingredients and killed everyone else. It could have bragged to the man later. And with Mustang, it could have blamed someone else for Hughes's murder, even if the big reveal had been incredibly satisfying. If Envy ever properly gloated, it would need to be absolutely certain that the loathsome humans did not have a way of harming it and it would need to kill the witnesses afterwards, but it was not like that was a problem if it made sure that they were incapacitated.

"And yet different humans like entirely different things, so you could find a person who loves nothing better than a violently heated exchange of insults, or being treated like a lower lifeform. I knew people like that, they were souls inside me. And speaking of souls in the Philosopher's Stone... I don't know how yours is doing, but I was able to talk to the souls in mine and get them on my side, so to say. I don't know whether it's possible for you, but I don't see why not, unless they're just a big mess without sense of self, but then I guess you could arrange them. I think that if you could do that, you could prolong your lifespan even more since you wouldn't need to forcibly take the energy. It might even make your abilities more powerful. You shapeshift, right? Oh, I just had a nice idea. Humans can transform food into energy in their digestive system, and I assume you can too, but you could modify yourself so that you could do something else entirely with your digestive system, like objects. You could just 'eat' a bunch of metal and have your body modify it into a blade, or something." At this point Envy just stared at Hohenheim, who looked thoughtful. "Oh, never mind, that strains even my knowledge of biology. I suppose it's too good to work."

"You've got some mouth on you, old man."

"Yes, I'm just musing my mind out. I've had too long to think about issues like this. Do you think any of what I said could be helpful?"

Envy wanted to think of his advice as garbage, but some rational part of its mind said that there was some point in the words. "That remains to be seen."

"That was a good answer. Do you think you can achieve what you want and get rid of your enviousness?"

Envy thought that it would be a pretty simple if long-winded thing to get a trusting friend, but the issue of resenting the humans for succeeding was more of a problem. A thought hit its mind that it could take a key role in the humans' attempt to create something grand. Then, whatever success they achieved would be thanks to it; the humans could not have succeeded without it. Again, the humans would have to be envious of it and its abilities. Now Envy was satisfied enough and twisted its mouth into a wide grin. "Don't even doubt it."

"Why does that smile make me so uneasy?"

Envy kept the grin on its face for a while and assured itself that it felt sufficiently good despite all that had happened. "It wouldn't work to keep a name like Envy when I reach my goal."

"My, you're right."

"Well, old man, want to give me a new name that I can use when that happens?"

"Oh, this is a circle of some kind. Did you know that when I was young and your Father was still a little dwarf in a flask, I told him that I had no name and he named me Van Hohenheim?"

"Oh really?"

"Right. Anyway, I can give you a name if you want. Feel free to forget it and make up your own if you don't like it. It's not nice being tied to a name or completely defined by it, right? Hmm... How about Lang?"

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know!" said Hohenheim in a humourous manner. "I don't think it means anything yet. Isn't that great? You can have it mean just you. You could ask people from other countries whether it means something, though."

Envy did not drop its grin, though it was not as wide as a moment ago. "Ha ha, old man, I guess that isn't so bad a name."

"Nice of you to say that. Now then, I better get going if I want to make it home in time." Hohenheim started walking down the pile of rubble. Envy glanced briefly at him but returned to its thoughts soon enough.

Envy did not think there was any point in returning to the spot in the tunnels where Ed and the others had left it. It figured that telling the truth would work best, of course excluding the parts where it plotted to kill them and help Father. And helping Father... it certainly had not wanted to help the humans, but would there have been any point in helping Father either? There was too much evidence for him not really caring about his creations. The only common thing they shared was that they wanted more Philosopher's Stone. Would Father have taken all the Stone for himself? The way he tried to assimilate and then killed Greed was definitely speaking for his selfishness. Greed's demise was not exactly positive, even if he was a filthy traitor. Since Father could not make his plan work, it meant his plan had been bad. Even after he had managed to make Mustang the fifth sacrifice and gotten all the power of Truth, he had broken down.

"Well, Father, I am free of you now and I shall feel happy that YOU failed while I live, even if I would've wanted your success more," thought Envy. "I won't fail again."


	3. Talk Away

Hiding behind its chosen pillar, Envy looked at the humans moving about in the courtyard. They were starting to clean up things, fixing damage and rounding up the survivors. Edward's manner looked like he was gathering a group to go back and fetch Envy. He took along with him Hawkeye but for some reason not Mustang. Instead, he seemed to reluctantly ask Major Alex Louis Armstrong to come with him, and the once again shirtless hunk enthusiastically agreed, bloody though he was. Scar was nowhere to be seen. The three seemed to be heading toward the huge hole in the ground that lead into Father's room. Envy got up and walked over to the other side of the pile of rubble to keep the rest of the people from seeing it for now. It then headed toward the hole as well. The ground was unstable, and once the first cracks had appeared on the stone floor under its feet, Envy moved further away from the edge of the hole. Once it saw Ed, Hawkeye and Armstrong, it waved at them in an eerily cheery manner.

Ed was obviously alarmed. Hawkeye aimed her rifle at Envy, while Armstrong took a fighting stance. Envy lifted its other hand as well and held them peacefully in plain view to signal that it was not going to get aggressive. It walked closer but stopped some six metres away from them to keep a safe distance.

"What are you doing here? I told you stay in the tunnels!" shouted Edward.

"No, you did not. But truth be told, I would still be there if you hadn't managed to form that enclosure around a rat hole!"

"You could've still stayed down there and not betray my trust!"

"You're going to have to hear the full version, aren't you, Fullmetal Alchemist? Fine. A rat harassed me, so I took control of it. Then a whole bunch of other rats teamed up on me, so I had to run away. I ran across some stray mannequin soldiers and took control of them. I literally cleaned them up for you so that they can't hurt others, so shouldn't you be more grateful? Besides, like this I can do something useful."

Ed had looked vaguely amused when Envy told of its adventures with the rats, but now he kept quiet for a moment while seeming to relax. "How long have you been watching us?"

"I came just in time to see Greed die. Just so you know, I hate you for killing Father and damn, shorty, you'd be in for a world of vengeful agony..." Envy's manner turned slightly more hostile but it was clearly just posing; it stayed in place and was pointing aggravatedly at Edward while making an angry and offended face. "But I'm willing to ...forget that and not bother you and your little friends," said Envy with obvious reluctance and managed to not add "for now" at the end of its promise. It would not dare to misbehave too seriously lest Mustang would come at it again, even if it meant having to play along with Ed. It thought it could suffer the boy in order to survive, as long as he did not start getting on its nerves too much. It then continued in a rather dismissive tone, though it sounded otherwise serious. "So there, consider this the first act on the road to achieving that trust and friendship that's bonding you weak humans together so strongly." Envy lowered its hands and placed them on its hips. Major Armstrong looked delightfully confused, which improved its mood slightly.

Edward did not know what to think either. Refraining from excessive gloating and attacking was hardly commendable, but for Envy it did mark a milestone.

"What was that?" came the voice of Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong as she appeared next to her brother. "Do we have one more enemy here?" she said as she drew her sword.

"Sister! You should b– –" This time Major General Armstrong did not even bother to voice a command, but instead immediately gave a swift kick to her brother's shin to make him shut up.

"No! Well, I don't think so, at least," said Ed, sounding unsure in the presence of the Major General.

"Are you sure? It's a homunculus. Shouldn't they be gotten rid of?" She started walking toward Envy, sword at the ready.

Envy brought its hands back up to signal its defensiveness and took a few steps back. "Hold on now, Major General! I'm not any use to you as dead or an enemy!"

"Oh, you imply you're not an enemy now? Are you then a 'traitor' like that Greed one?" Major General Armstrong stopped advancing but did not put away her sword.

"If that's what you want to call me. It wasn't my intention to betray Father, but obviously since he didn't succeed, his plan was bad. Now he's gone and I'm free to do whatever I wish, which includes not making the same mistakes as he."

"I see. What can you do?" Envy felt some confusion toward the sudden question. It could see the flabbergasted Ed behind the Major General, and both Hawkeye and Major Armstrong seemed speechless as well.

"Straight to the point, eh, Major General, sir?" Envy took the form of Major General Armstrong. She looked a little surprised but otherwise unfazed. Envy continued in her voice but using its unofficial tone and freer vocabulary. "In addition, I have great strength and other useful homunculi powers. And of course I know a great deal about different things but even you humans can do that. Like drawing a whole bunch of transmutation circles even if I can't use them and reciting this one guy's cookbooks, and so on." It saw Ed, Hawkeye and Major Armstrong changing their expressions into another kind of astonished one. "What? Even when bored, it isn't always fun to play with and kill people, you know. They'd run out or lose their will to live," it said to them.

Ed seemed pale. "I do NOT want to know why you know this..."

The Major General changed her stoic expression just slightly to a more satisfied one. She turned around and walked toward Ed's group again. Envy could have easily struck her in the back, or so it thought. It managed to restrain itself. "I'll take that thing with me when I leave," she said decisively, putting away her sword, and did not even stop to hear any protests but headed back toward the courtyard.

Even Envy was surprised, but Ed, Hawkeye and Major Armstrong were nearly thrown off their feet. "Eh? Major General Armstrong, you... ah... bwah..." Ed was so shocked that he could not come up with anything sensible to say. He turned his head between the departing Major General and Envy. "Uh, well, um, the tunnels down there are in danger of collapsing, right? Why don't you t-t-three go there and fix them and get rid of any of those mannequin soldiers and make sure that there are no people stuck in the ruins and... Bye!" Ed ran hastily after Major General Armstrong, leaving the confused Hawkeye and Major Armstrong behind.

"What's with the Major General?" asked Envy, mildly annoyed and wiggling its finger after her. "Just coming and laying claim like that?"

"Ohh, she is like that..." started Major Armstrong helplessly and did not finish.

"You'll have to ask her," said Hawkeye warily.

"Oh? Intriguing." Envy grinned again and its two guardians were uneasy. "Well now, you heard him. Are we going down or not? Or are you not taking orders from a child below your rank?" Major Armstrong looked at Hawkeye who was still aiming her rifle at Envy, though not in a truly serious manner.

Hawkeye thought the situation over. She had no idea what the Major General was thinking. The immediate issue at hand needed to be handled, and she considered herself to be one of the most qualified people to do it. While she did not trust Envy and would probably have played along just long enough to safely execute it, she knew that it would take too many shots now. She did not think that she could accomplish it even with the help of Major Armstrong. Therefore, she figured that the best choice would be to see if Envy actually kept its word; this far it seemed to genuinely believe that it had no other choice, so maybe, just maybe this situation could turn out for the better. Also, Edward's suggestion was not bad, since they would be out of the way in the tunnels and no one would see Envy around. "Let's go down then. I suggest you change into a soldier less conspicuous than the Major General." Hawkeye lifted the rifle to her shoulders again.

Envy sighed and changed itself into the soldier it usually posed as.

"Let's go. Major, can we use that pillar that you used to bring us up?"

"Yes, First Lieutenant," said Armstrong. They moved closer to the edge of the huge hole, as did Envy. It heard some cracks from the floor beneath it and looked at it, annoyed. It stopped a good distance from the edge of the hole when it saw the pillar that Armstrong had made. "Did you hear that? This floor is unstable." Armstrong knelt down on the floor and studied it for a moment before pressing his fists against it. The floor cracked and changed a bit, its structure becoming stronger. Its outward appearance improved, and unlike when most alchemists made or fixed something, the floor did not seem to have any kind of alchemical flaws.

"Can that pillar of yours withstand my weight, Major Armstrong?" asked Envy.

"Of course! The art of making sturdy pillars has been passed down in the Armstrong family for generations!"

"I weigh at least five times more than you."

"Absurd!"

"Try it if you don't believe! Go on, lift me." Armstrong accepted the challenge and walked toward Envy.

"Major..." started Hawkeye but did not finish. Instead, she kept her rifle ready.

"So untrusting!" commented Envy at Hawkeye and faced Armstrong.

Armstrong grabbed Envy by the shoulders and was rather surprised when his little tug did not manage to raise a body the size of a slender teenager. "What is this?" He tried a few more times, each time with more strength. Once his tugging had managed to shift Envy's centre of gravity a little, it decided to make him stop.

"Are you done? Now, can that pillar withstand the weight or not?"

Armstrong was extremely puzzled. "...Probably not."

"The service lift is this way." They climbed over the smallest wall of debris and entered the headquarters building. Major Armstrong fixed some damage along the way.

Envy wondered what had happened to Mustang. It had seen him standing around, seemingly unhurt, even though it was obvious that he had been made the fifth sacrifice. It did not think its guardians would tell it anything about that, but it could still try and make them uncomfortable. "It felt like Father managed to get the souls of Amestrians at one point, even if he lost them. Doesn't that mean that he did manage to force Mustang to perform human transmutation? Even after I specifically warned you about that?" Both Hawkeye and Armstrong were quiet. Envy grinned to itself. "I wonder what was taken from him. I do hope it was his tongue, or his cursed hands."

"Shut up!" exclaimed Hawkeye.

Envy flashed its grin at the two but then spoke to them agreeably. "Oh, fine."

They arrived at the lift and Envy took it down to the forbidden levels. They set out to fix the broken tunnels systematically, with Envy clearing the bigger collapses first to check that there were no humans under it, and then Armstrong fixing the damage with his alchemy.

They found a few more stray mannequin soldiers that Envy assimilated into its body. One of them even surprise attacked Hawkeye, who would have lost at least an arm or her life if Envy had not grabbed the mindless doll. Envy of course would rather have let her die but knew that it earned points by "saving" her. Hawkeye was just very uneasy about it.


	4. Solution

While Envy, Hawkeye and Major Armstrong left for the underground tunnels, Edward reached Major General Armstrong in the courtyard. "Major General! Please, I have to... say SOMETHING about..."

"Yes, what?"

"Um, what exactly did you mean when you said you'd... 'take him'? Do you seriously mean to take Envy with you to Briggs?"

"Envy, is that so? Yes. Are you telling me not to?" she asked, looming threateningly over Ed.

"Ehhh... no!" exclaimed Ed nervously. "But he's... problematic. He's a complete monster. I'm not sure what to think about his claim to achieve and have a trusting friendship. See, I figured out that he's incredibly envious about us humans since we're able to put aside our differences and trust each other and have loving relationships. He then said he wanted to have that too."

"Uh-huh. That does sound heinous."

"Er... I find it really hard to I believe him since he's tortured and killed people for fun before, but I guess I want to believe him. He did seem unusually non-violent now. I suppose I'm notorious for not wanting to kill anyone. I didn't even kill Pride! I pulled his true form out of that shell of his and left it in a safe place. But um, I guess my point is that Envy's dangerous. Really dangerous. So far he's been helpless against just Mustang's flames and when his Philosopher's Stone was directly destroyed."

"So you're saying that I need to have a quick and sure way to get rid of him if he causes the slightest trouble?"

"Maybe... sort of... yes. It's really, really easy to set him off by insulting him somehow but he's really dangerous too. Still, he's not a skilled fighter, and instead of doing what's efficient, he likes to gloat about his atrocities and tries way too much to insult people."

"I see. Does freezing him work?"

"...Well, yes, it should."

"Good." Major General Armstrong left again, considering the matter closed.

Ed could not help feeling like the situation was just a massive powder keg waiting to go off. Nonetheless, he was happy that he had not forced himself to kill Envy or have it killed by someone else. He only hoped that he would not have to regret that. He then remembered leaving Pride in Father's room and promptly left to get the miniature baby out of there.

During the rest of the day, the following night and the next day, medical and non-medical staff alike worked overtime to recover and take care of those injured in the battle. On the evening of the next day, all relevant people had been patched up, and Mustang could hold his meeting to discuss the future. One topic concerned Envy.

Besides Mustang, some of the people who were present included Edward, Major General Armstrong, Major Armstrong, Hawkeye and Lieutenant General Grumman who was to become the next Führer.

"The next on our list of extremely unpleasant issues is that other homunculus who survived... who Edward let live," said Mustang. "It's called Envy, and it's a shapeshifter. Besides Father, it seems to be the worst one of them. Among other things, it was the one who started the Ishval Civil War by impersonating an Amestrian soldier and shooting an Ishvalan kid, and the one who murdered Hughes." Mustang paused and took a slow breath to calm himself. "Now, does anyone besides Edward have any reason to let the thing live, or can we finally stop this farce and execute it?"

"Um, maybe we could put it in prison for a few decades?" suggested Ed.

"More like forever."

"You're not going to do anything to it. I'm going to take it with me to Briggs," said Major General Armstrong. Everybody turned to look at her.

"What!" shouted Mustang. Once he realised that he was screaming at a higher ranking officer, he changed his tone. "Surely you must be joking, Major General."

"I am not."

"That thing can't be trusted! It's made of sadism and deceit."

"It seems as if you're still mad about your murdered friend. Do recall how many friends of others you killed in Ishval. Grieve him all you wish but do not complain because your friend was special."

"That war was its fault too. And before you say that it might have started the war but we kept it going, do remember that the Führer-homunculus just fed the flames, leaving no choice but being a murderer or a deserter."

"Yes, it was an unfortunate situation and sadly no one realised that until it was too late. Was that supposed to change my mind?"

"...Are you going to pretend that it never did those things? That it isn't a sadistic murderer?"

"While I don't have a reason to doubt your words, your words are the only thing I have. I'd rather take this extraordinary chance than waste it because you claim this homunculus is a horrible monster and can't change or work with us."

"That thing is going to kill you and all of your subordinates if you take it to Briggs."

"I don't think so. But if it matters that much to you, I give you permission to tell me 'I told you so' if it doesn't work out."

"I don't want to say that to you, ever, Major General! I want that you and the Briggs soldiers survive."

"Why do you want this Envy, Armstrong?" asked Grumman.

"He's an unmatched impersonator and would be immensely useful for me. We could find out for good what those bastards in Drachma are planning or even root out their will to fight and help them become a better nation that we can trade with."

"And you think he will agree to do that for you?"

"He will never," said Mustang. "The second you let him loose, if he can even hold it in that long, he'll change face and murder you all."

"Hold your tongue. Let me recall... what was that he wanted? 'To have a trusting friendship' like us humans? It is a steep price indeed, and I shall make my best effort to prevent him from reaching that goal," she said sarcastically before looking at Mustang in a clearly serious manner. "Mustang, if it seems like that is what it takes to get him on our side, I have no problem letting him try to have that. If he still betrays us, I suppose you will have no choice but to teach me flame alchemy so I can deal with my error."

Hawkeye looked concerned now, and Mustang did not like the direction of the conversation. "While I can't truly oppose the idea of teaching you flame alchemy just so you could once again burn through that abomination, you should not think alche– –"

"Colonel Mustang!" stated Major General Armstrong forcefully. "I grow tired of hearing your babble. It is obvious that you resent the homunculus for murdering your friend and indirectly manoeuvring you into a miserable position in Ishval. You will not make my decisions for me. I will decide whether or not to take Envy with me. You will live with my decision just like you live with yourself."

"I literally will not live long if you let that abhorrent creature loose!"

Major General Armstrong gave Mustang one of the most evil eyes many of the others had ever seen. Of course, the only thing Mustang himself noticed was that the surroundings suddenly got unnervingly quiet. He did hear some anxious-sounding breathing from his colleagues.

Grumman was also unaffected since he was sitting next to Major General Armstrong and was not looking at her face at the moment. "She's giving you the evil eye, isn't she? She is, indeed," he said. "Okay, you both have good points. I don't know this Envy and I suspect I really don't want to, either. That said, I shall let Armstrong take full responsibility of her decision and the homunculus. If you let that thing wreak havoc in Briggs, I'm going to be very angry with you."

"That will not happen, Lieutenant General."

"I do hope so. So, what's next on our list of unpleasantries?" he asked and smiled at the dumbfounded Mustang.

Later, Mustang tried to get Grumman to order Armstrong to give up on Envy, but the Lieutenant General did not want to discuss the issue any further.

#-#

Envy spent two full days clearing out the rubble while soldiers who knew what it was kept a close eye on it. Nearly all of them stared at it with a look of fear and confusion that worsened each time it grinned widely at them. It found the reaction relatively funny. It discovered and saved a few people from the ruins, though it did not bother to treat one victim with a broken spine with enough care and ended up killing him almost unintentionally. However, no one seemed to care as they thought that the guy had been beyond repair already and would have died regardless of who had handled him.

While working, Envy performed all its physical jobs very mechanically and spent most of its attention on thinking about its future. How would it get along with the humans without trying to get them to fight each other? Edward and his friends were an exception after all; most people would fall for its taunts if it instigated them. It decided to go for as much ambiguity as it could for now and see if that worked. And maybe make them fight just a little.

Envy also thought about its goal and decided to try its luck with befriending humans. While it did consider them to be despicable lower lifeforms, they did have their uses and some could certainly be less annoying than others – it thought it could maybe come to appreciate some of them for that. It decided to pick out more tolerable humans to befriend first. Trying to be friends with everyone would just be creepy, and plenty of humans were obviously too insufferable. If the ones that it thought were more tolerable did not work out, it could always widen its views.

Near the evening of the third day, Major General Armstrong, her little brother and Edward sought out Envy in the mostly repaired tunnels near Father's room. Envy was explaining the layout of the unknown tunnels to two very uneasy soldiers.

The Major General spoke first to them. "Leave us." The two promptly straightened up, saluted her and scurried away. She then turned to Envy. "I have some questions for you. Will you come with me to Fort Briggs?"

"Hm? Is there another choice?"

"Not really," said Ed in a quiet tone.

While it did not like that it was essentially forced to bend to the humans' will, it thought that there were worse places to which it could have been told to go. "Hmph. Fine, I'll come. You want me to be one of your soldiers, is that it, Major General, sir?"

"Yes. You seem to be familiar with how the military works."

"Well sure, I've been pulling some strings around here for about a hundred and fifty years."

Major General Armstrong took a sterner look. "If I need you to pull strings, I might send you to spy in Drachma, but that's not going to happen for some time. I hear you're quite the instigator. I need you to hold in your demagoguery in Briggs, though truth be told, I don't mind if you 'test' the loyalty of my soldiers. Just make sure you don't ruin them."

"Are you suggesting that I should pose as random soldiers or other Briggs soldiers?"

"No. I don't care how you present yourself to others. If you do use your powers to mess with the soldiers, they will eventually catch on to the fact that there's a shapeshifter around. In addition, I have already told about you to some of my soldiers. Inside Fort Briggs, there's no point or need in keeping it secret that you're a shapeshifter. However, I do require you and everyone else to keep that piece of information inside the Fort."

"Hmph. You know what, I'm done pretending to be a human. I'll rather be myself for most of the time."

"You don't mean your... HUGE..." started Ed, looking a little pale with a touch of you're-doing-it-wrong.

"Of course not, Fullmetal Bean!"

Ed growled something about a maggot, but Major General Armstrong spoke over him. "Your huge what?"

"True form." Envy made a small jump into the air and landed on the tunnel floor, making it crack slightly. "See, heavier than I look. You better fix that, Fullmetal. Or is it Halfmetal now?"

Ed still growled a bit but before he could say anything, Major Armstrong cut in front of him. They had seen it more beneficial to not let Envy know that Edward could no longer perform alchemy. "Oh no, you mustn't exert yourself, Edward Elric! Let me handle this." He pushed his fists on the floor and fixed the cracks.

"You have a true form? Just how large is it?" asked Major General Armstrong.

"You want to see?"

"No!" shouted Ed. "We really... don't... uh..." Major General Armstrong glared him silent.

"Yes," she said.

"Well then! Let's get out of here, this tunnel is far too small."

Envy led them into a bigger tunnel and then an even bigger tunnel close by. It also checked that no one was within seeing or hearing distance. "Are you ready, humans?" it asked, grinned and started changing. Ed looked just inconvenienced since he had seen the transformation before, but Major Armstrong's expression of dread, horror, shock and disgust was exceptionally enjoyable to Envy. Major General Armstrong mostly kept her cool, though even her face clearly showed that she was surprised and at the least somewhat disturbed by the sight of a green, vaguely lizard-like eldritch abomination partially composed of moving and transforming corpses. "Ha ha ha!" it laughed with a voice that sounded like it had too many speakers. Yet some bodies on its neck and shoulders kept on going with their own, mostly inane lines. "You should see your face, Major!" The Armstrongs were still left speechless.

"I think that's enough," commented Ed. He was somehow trying to keep an eye on Envy while trying to not actually look at it.

"Yes, sadly, one can only shock a person once like this." Envy then started shrinking and changing.

"Are you kidding me? I'm shocked every damn time!"

"And am I not glad about it?" it asked with a wide grin as it shifted into its preferred form. It then walked back to the others, stretching its arms behind its back. It looked curiously at them while waiting for them to do something.

"Do make sure I never have to see that again. Do you need to eat?" asked Major General Armstrong after a short moment. Envy giggled at the sudden change in topic but did not have time to reply. "Do NOT giggle like that at me," said Major General Armstrong threateningly.

Envy pretended to be surprised by the sudden change in tone. "Oy, sir! No, I don't absolutely need to eat. But I think I will. Food is nice, no?" The real reason was that Envy actually got energy for itself from food and thus would not need to use its Stone just to maintain its body. Of course, eating meant having to maintain a digestive system, which was bothersome, but the lesser of two inconveniences in this case.

"Interesting. Do you need to breathe?"

"Yes." Again, Envy knew well enough that it could survive without air for some time, but that meant that it would "die" and consume its Stone.

"Do you need to sleep?"

"No. I like sleeping sometimes anyway."

"Does cold damage you?"

"Not much."

"You can't... 'eat' the souls of living people like Father, can you?" Ed cut in.

"Of course not, don't you think I would have done that several times already if I could? Only Father and Pride could do that, and even they usually didn't. Eating people's souls directly like that is terribly inefficient. If it wasn't, we wouldn't need anyone to make Philosopher's Stone!" Edward looked like he had heard too much.

"Are you going to betray me or Fort Briggs at any point in the future?" asked Major General Armstrong.

Envy raised an eyebrow at the directness of the question. It knew that it had to say no, but the manner of saying it meant much as well. It settled for a simple statement after looking decisively and seriously at the Major General for a moment. "No."

"If it turns out you lied, I will learn flame alchemy and hunt you down personally." Envy frowned and showed an offended face, obviously unhappy about the threat. It folded its arms on its chest. "Otherwise you're free to do whatever you wish to reach your own goal."

"That must come with other conditions like 'don't kill people' and 'don't force them to make Philosopher's Stone' and 'you must wear a military uniform'."

"Yes. That outfit won't do."

"Hm, you know, I might as well make myself a complete default form and wear real clothes."

"Real clothes?" asked Ed. "What do you call that then?" He pointed at Envy's outfit.

"A part of my body. What, did you think I could regenerate objects that are not my body? This is not real cloth," it said and stretched the front of its skirt-like piece of clothing with its hands. It then made it longer for a moment.

"So you're actually naked all the time?"

Envy just grinned in response as it let go of the "cloth" and placed its hands on its hips.

"You'll get a uniform when we get to Briggs. Until then, wear yourself," said Major General Armstrong.

"Hmm." Envy's body started crackling and reducing its mass to its minimum limit. "What rank am I going to be?"

"Warrant Officer."

"Heh heh." Envy then generated the appropriate uniform but left itself otherwise unchanged, at least based on its body type and face.

Ed became critical immediately. "That's it? You're going to go around looking like that? You still look like a teenager and you didn't get rid of that thing on your forehead or your eyes... you didn't even make yourself any taller!"

"Ha ha!" exclaimed Envy amusedly, leaned toward Ed and waved its fingers at him. "What is it with you and your shortness issues? Height isn't everything, you know. I find it more convenient to be shorter than most, pipsqueak." Ed gnarled and stared at it hostilely. "As for these things," it said and pointed at its still slitted and violet eyes and forehead where the red nodes were. "They're a part of my true form. I said I was done pretending to be a human. Human-like is enough."

"That's good enough for me, though I imagine you'll face plenty of questions about your age," said Major General Armstrong. "How old are you really?"

"A hundred and seventy-something. But it's not like that matters."

Major General Armstrong thought about what Envy had said for a moment. It did act like an immature preteen for most of the time, even if it was obvious that it knew much more and could hold a serious conversation about at least some topics without throwing a fit. Yet it seemed to expect people to treat it like a respected elder of superior intellect. Once one knew what it was and how much it really did know, it was easy to give it that extra lenience and ignore its presented age and impoliteness in favour of its real age and experience, at least up to a point. Even Armstrong herself noticed that she had not bothered to react on its childishness. "Are you a man or a woman?"

Envy made a small uninterpretable frown. "No."

"Hm. You need to hide your strange facial features in public."

Edward cut in again. "But, if you're going to look like that in Fort Briggs, aren't the soldiers going to notice you're not human right away? What will they think then?"

"They will deal with it," stated Major General Armstrong matter-of-factly.

"See? I like this attitude," commented Envy to Ed.

"They're going to make fun of you," said Ed.

Envy's expression changed into an annoyed one and it straightened itself. "Not for long." It looked at the Major General. "Are there any more questions? When do we leave?"

"I'm done." Major General Armstrong dug a watch out of her pocket and checked the time. "Mmm... we leave now."

"That was fast. Warrant Officer Envy ready to leave, sir!"

Major General Armstrong signalled that they should leave and started walking back toward the lift. Envy walked after her, and Major Armstrong and Edward followed it.

#-#

**Author notes: And now for shapeshifter science!** (Feel free to not read the following if you're not interested. It doesn't have much to do with the story directly, but it explains in detail a certain change I made with respect to the manga. Scroll to the end if you want to see just the outcome.)

The reason I wrote this is because Envy's weight and change of size were handled very inconsistently in the manga and anime, even if they had tried to make it reasonable by saying that Envy's mass doesn't change. I could ignore it while enjoying the series, but when I write, I just couldn't let it go! I literally couldn't write for days until I got this mass thing figured out. I need an explanation that is reasonable enough for myself.

So yeah, Envy's mass is problematic. Its true form is obviously larger than an elephant and seems to be about one-fifth to one-tenth of that of a blue whale. A large elephant weighs over 10000 kg and has a volume of 10 m³. A blue whale weighs 200000 kg and has a volume of 200 m³. Yes, I'm blatantly assuming that animals have the average density of water, 1000 kg/m³. Still, the size of Envy's true form seems to change in the manga from a fifth of a whale to a small elephant, and in the anime even more. The change might be due to its Philosopher's Stone diminishing, but I can't really say.

From a consistent point of view, I could declare that for Envy's true form, its (maximum) volume is about one-tenth of that of a blue whale: 20 m³. With a normal density, its mass would be 20000 kg. A human-sized form of that mass would be incredibly hard to move around, even if I said that Envy can construct its tissues so that they're extra durable. That of course would mean that in a small form, it wouldn't be nearly as vulnerable to physical attacks as it seems. Anyway, it needs to have less weight than a mammal of regular density to be able to manoeuvre quickly even with a durable physique, so I say its (minimum) density would be one-fifth of water, about 200 kg/m³. This would bring its (maximum) mass to 4000 kg.

Even if Envy "only" weighed 4000 kg, that kind of weight in a human-sized being results in massive destruction of furniture and buildings. Just consider that if it stands on two feet, each foot would have a weight of over 2000 kg (the weight of a personal car) on it, and a foot has a rather small area. That's massive pressure on a very small spot right there. Lighter things can break through floors. When running, it would shatter pavement and get stuck in softer ground.

A regular person could have a mass of about 50 kg and thus a volume of about 0,05 m³. Envy in human form, with a mass of 4000 kg and a volume of 0,05 m³, would have a density of 80000 kg/m³. The densest natural element is osmium with 22600 kg/m³, the density of Earth's core is 13000 kg/m³ and the core of the Sun is 150000 kg/m³. I don't think that kind of density is going to work.

Therefore, I'll declare is that Envy's true size depends on its Philosopher's Stone, so that its mass can be smaller if it doesn't have enough Philosopher's Stone. This leads to Envy being able to change its mass. (Well, mass is energy as per E=mc². Watch me flap my hands.) Besides, the homunculi regenerate their bodies out of the Philosopher's Stone anyway, thus creating mass out of energy. There could be a rule that regeneration is the only instance when energy-mass transformation occurs, and that Envy always regenerates into its original mass. Then the massive density and mass problem would remain, which is not good. I could also say that Envy weighs just 600 kg (which I'm thinking is a "reasonable" mass that doesn't hinder it immensely) and that its true form is a lot less dense than water. However, then it would just get blown away by strong winds, be incredibly squishy and fragile and wouldn't be able to hold people down in its true form.

Regeneration seems to be rather slow, so I'll say that the conversion of Philosopher's Stone into mass is slow and vice versa even slower and more difficult. That is why Envy does it very rarely, and most of the time it just weighs around 1000–500 kg. I think saying that 400 kg is its minimum weight would be a decent arbitrary limitation. (Why should this limitation be there, though? I like having it, but that's not a very good reason.) I think I'll also declare that its maximum density is 50000 kg/m³. Then its minimum volume would be 0,008 m³ which is a normal volume for a mammal weighing 8 kg (say, a large housecat). Also, when it's dismembered but doesn't regenerate properly and instead shifts into a new form that's complete even without the regeneration, mass is assumedly lost. This means that it can lose mass without converting it to Philosopher's Stone first.

But if the energy is specifically soul energy, how does energy from mass convert into souls? Then again, how does soul energy convert into mass? Okay, now it's maybe better to just leave it and say that souls are awesome and it happens, full stop.

In summary: Envy can change its mass. Its minimum mass is 400 kg and maximum mass 4000 kg. Its minimum volume is 0,008 m³ and maximum volume 20 m³. Its minimum density is 200 kg/m³ and maximum density 50000 kg/m³.

**End of author notes**


	5. Transition

Major General Armstrong, Envy, Major Armstrong and Edward rode the service lift up to the headquarters building. Many structures were still rather shabby, but most of the rubble was gone. Envy chose to change its face to look normal for now.

Once they were outside on the courtyard, Major General Armstrong turned around to face Major Armstrong and Ed. "I don't require your presence any longer. Goodbye."

Major Armstrong quickly saluted his older sister, while Ed looked a little confused. They said nothing while Major General Armstrong and Envy walked away toward the front gate. Envy looked back at Edward, hoping it would never have to see him again, except to kill him, of course. Likewise, Ed looked at it and wished to never hear another word about it.

The two walked past the gates and onto a nearby street where a few Briggs trucks were waiting and being loaded. They headed for the second last of the trucks. Two privates were loitering on its loading platform and two officers stood next to the driver's compartment. Major General Armstrong stopped before the two officers who saluted her.

"Captain Blohm and First Lieutenant Linke, this is Warrant Officer Envy, the shapeshifter I told you about. He'll be with your troops from now on. Make sure he behaves. As you were." Having said that, she walked away.

"Huh. Well, congratulations on switching camp, I guess," said Captain Blohm. While comparable to Mustang in appearance, he was both taller and more muscular than the Colonel. He was sharp-looking and had mostly chin-length messy black hair, blue eyes and a goatee. "Oh man, I wish I was a shapeshifter. I'd change into a woman and sneak into the shower with women! Haha!" Evidently his sharp looks did not extend to his personality.

Envy tried to repress expressing its feelings of ultimate superiority, detestation and contempt. It stared at him with an appropriate expression of scorn and having heard too much. "Chaaarrmiiinnng," it drawled.

"Come on, like you have never done that?"

"Think a little, you human! If you changed into a woman, you'd BE a woman. Are you sure you'd need other women after that?"

Blohm opened his mouth and was about to say something but did not. Instead he stopped to think. "That's a good point," he then said and stared dreamily at the sky, smiling to himself. Envy rolled its eyes and looked at Linke, wondering whether he was as big an idiot as Blohm.

First Lieutenant Linke played helpless. "He's like that, nothing to be done about it." He was much smaller and wirier than Blohm, though he did stand taller than Envy. His face was very harsh and his eyes grey. In stark contrast, his long, soft, pastel-brown hair was pulled into a neat and tight ponytail. "I'd have much more practicable use for those powers. Like impersonating someone who has access to classified documents and then indulging myself in all that glorious information."

"Now that I have done, and pretty often too. But the best part is no doubt to disguise as people's loved ones, threaten them and then kill them," it went on, starting to sound enthralled. "The looks on their faces are priceless!"

Linke frowned a bit. "That's rather harsh, but okay..." Envy made a small grin at him and tried to remind itself that it should not boast about its murders quite this openly.

Blohm, then again, seemed to develop quite a knot in his panties. "Ugh, that's cruel! Disg– –"

"Calm down there, Captain, sir," said Envy nonchalantly. "That phase is over and done with. No need to foam about it."

Blohm looked angry and defiant but kept his mouth shut. He did continue talking about the earlier topic. "Why wouldn't you go spy in the women's shower, huh?"

Envy looked at the Captain scornfully again. "Why would I? My, I've gone to plenty of public showers because that's what you humans expect of each other. I don't think there's anything of note to see in naked humans."

Blohm stared at Envy in confusion and did not come up with anything to say. Linke looked more curious. "How old are you really?"

"A hundred and seventy-something. But that's irrelevant." Both Blohm and Linke looked a little uneasy as they tried to wrap their brains around such an extensive age. Envy sighed with boredom, even if their expressions were funny to look at.

A large steel gate nearby opened and a first lieutenant called out for the others. "Attention everyone! Our luggage is ready! Start carrying!"

Blohm signalled to the two privates and called them to him. "All right, soldiers. Let's go pick up our stuff."

More people from the other trucks also headed to the gate. Envy walked through the gate to the loading area with the others, wondering whether this was what its life was going to be now. Doing mundane things with humans was demeaning. Then again, it had done the same before while impersonating others, and why could it not think of this latest situation as an extended exercise of deception? Also, it was not like Envy had not done similar chores for Father. Still, it did not like its predicament and looked quite sour.

The other soldiers carried the rather large and heavy boxes in pairs or groups of four. Envy just chose something that looked like it would not break easily and picked it up by itself. One man had offered it help but had fallen silent as he saw it lift the large box all alone. Envy ignored him. Unsurprisingly, it was the first to make it to a truck and after more boxes started coming in, it spent its time inside the truck, organising the boxes, since moving them around was easy for it. It could not resist belittling the slow and inefficient humans as they brought in the boxes. They looked at it annoyedly but aside of a Second Lieutenant, did not talk back.

"Hey, Warrant Officer, you have no business talking to your superiors like that!"

"Superior? Hah! I'll see who's even more of a lower lifeform after I let this box drop on you and flatten your squishy human body," said Envy and moved a box right over his head. The Second Lieutenant quickly ducked and was about to retort, but Envy spoke again. "I'm doing this child's play of a job and you're being inefficient at it. I don't need to sweet-talk to YOU." It then put the box in place.

"That kind of talk is totally inappropriate! I'll let your superior know what a prick you're being."

Envy looked at the man completely down its nose. "Even though you don't even know who he is? That's fine, I will tell you. Captain Blohm right there," it said and pointed at Blohm, who was now next to the truck, bringing a rather large box with three others. The Second Lieutenant was standing in their way. "Please excuse me but I humbly suggest that, if it only pleases him, would your most excellent sir Second Lieutenant kindly displace himself so as to let his hard-working underlings do their jobs?" it asked, the excessive politeness and flowery speech going way over the top. "We ARE trying to work here, sir," it added in a tone appropriate to the situation. Blohm was excusing himself and the Second Lieutenant moved aside, gritting his teeth. The Second Lieutenant started ranting to Blohm as soon as Envy had taken the large box and they had left to get more.

Loading the boxes into the trucks did not take long. After that, they waited for a moment for their food supplies and then left for Fort Briggs. There were four larger trucks and one smaller one that had mostly soldiers in it. Blohm told Envy and First Lieutenant Linke to drive the middle one of the cargo trucks.

"Second Lieutenant Sopwith made a vocal complaint about your attitude," said Linke once they had left. He was driving for now.

"He's a whiner."

"Well, can't argue with that, but it's not like the others enjoyed your undermining them either. Sopwith will probably try to prevent you from rising up in the ranks."

"It isn't like I care about that..." Then again, if Envy did rise in the ranks and surpassed Sopwith, he would have no business defying it and it could treat him more condescendingly without him being able to do much about it. It made another wide grin. "Heh heh heh. On the other hand, there might be some perk in getting those promotions after all. But honestly, being such a truckling goody-goody in order to kiss up those high-ranks is massively lame."

"Tell me about it. Blohm is a simple guy but a nice friend, but Sopwith's just annoying most of the time."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Fortunately we don't have to deal with him too much. By the way, you look different than when we met..."

"I was just hiding this red thing and my eyes in public." Linke took a glance at Envy's slitted violet eyes and frowned a little. "Why, are you intimidated or something?"

"Well no, it's just odd." Envy thought that the guy would totally lose it if he saw its true form and felt rather amused at that. "How'd you become a warrant officer?"

"I asked Armstrong for a rank and that's what she gave me."

"Heh."

"That wasn't a joke. I mean, it isn't like I couldn't be the Führer. I impersonated the little brat many times and spent some two years as a full-time führer about 80 years back when there was that annoying assassination spree. And shorter periods at other times. I don't like being the Führer. Too much paperwork. It's dull."

Linke had a slightly bewildered look. "Right... I guess Führer Bradley would've been a 'brat' since you're so much older... Damn, it's so weird to think you've lived that long."

Envy did not reply and they drove silently. They got out of the city and into the peaceful countryside where it seemed like the recent events had had no effect. After a couple of hours the soldiers took a short break.

"You want to drive?" asked Linke from Envy once the break was over.

"Sure, why not." It started the engine that nearly immediately stalled. "What a pain, this is different from the last one..." It started the engine again and this time it kept running. "Why do you people make each car different? It'd be much easier if they all acted the same way!"

"Huh? I don't know, cars aren't my speciality. I guess it's because they want to make them better."

Envy thought back to the time when the humans had first come up with the automobile. It was true that even this big truck was much better than the smaller, inefficient and clumsy vehicles from decades back. Of course, now there were all kinds of traffic rules and other restrictions. Envy grinned as it remembered how it had at one time stolen one of those first cars and driven over some unsuspecting people, though the car had been so unmanoeuvrable that a lot of people had managed to escape.

The other trucks started as well and they began moving again. They held another break after two hours and then drove another two hours. At that point, the trucks were low on fuel, so they stopped in a town near the border of the Northern Area.

For some reason, the people of the town started gathering around them and acted hostilely, telling the soldiers to leave immediately. Apparently they did not want to help traitorous people who had killed Central soldiers. The soldiers from the local military post helped the Briggs soldiers, which probably prevented any bloodshed. The Briggs soldiers still had to take their fuel by force.

"Stupid pigs of farmers... Some selective hearing they have. They must be actively ignoring how we helped them," complained Linke to Envy once they were on the road again.

"I was disappointed that no one even hit anybody with a shovel or something."

"You really like watching people fight with each other, eh?"

"Oh, do I," it stated and smirked. "Were you in Ishval?"

"Yes. Well, not all the time, just a year right before the alchemists came to finish the job."

"And you know what started the war?" Envy could not resist leading the conversation into its big reveal.

"Sure, some loopy soldier of ours shot one of their kids."

"Yes, but I bet you didn't know that soldier was me!"

"What?"

"Shocked?" Envy grinned while glancing at Linke, but turned to look at the road soon enough since it was driving again.

"Uh, well, sort of. But I mean, it's not like knowing that changes the fact that the war happened. ...Or were you lying just now?"

Envy laughed and then continued keenly. "Either way...! All it took for the war to break out was that single bullet. I seriously thought that it would take more. Then I just watched as they went further and further with the killing, all on their own!" it chuckled.

Linke was a little uneasy and did not quite know what to think of Envy's words. "Huh..."

"Hmm? No angry words? No monster-calling?"

"No... Maybe it is something that only a monster could do. And a big number of us humans too. Humans are horrible monsters deep down, though some can resist the temptation. Anyway, I don't really care if you started the Ishval Civil War. I hated the bunch of them and their stupid religion, so good riddance I say."

"Oh, heh heh."

"You know, I used to make animals fight with each other when I was a kid. That was damned funny."

"Oh?" asked Envy in an interested tone. "That's the spirit!"

"It isn't as much fun with humans. It's because of all the empathy and identification; I see those people and think that they could be my friends or family, or myself. It gets much easier if I don't know anything about them though, or if they're like the Ishvalans. Or Drachmans, sometimes I feel so glad when they're fighting amongst each other that they might as well be animals. But with Amestrians, my best choice is to be happy that I'm not the one fighting."

"Well you're totally right being happy about that! I sure was whenever I made humans fight each other instead of me."

"Is it really so easy to make people fight with each other?"

"It takes some knowledge. Of course, with the Ishvalans and the military, it was painfully simple. When it's for example a pair of good friends or a married couple, it takes a lot of inside information. You'd think that cheating on a spouse would make the cheated one fly into a rage, so you can imagine my surprise that one time when it didn't happen and instead the 'cheated' one wanted to join in."

"Hahah, what? That's wrong, but kind of funny. Do you do that a lot? Messing around with couples?"

"Not really. It's a pain to arrange."

"But the drama would be delicious."

"It's still a pain. Hmm? Are you saying there are a few relationships going on in Fort Briggs that need some drama?"

"Maybe..."

"Aren't relationships between soldiers prohibited anyway?"

"Yes, but it isn't like people obey that rule. Most of the time it's just ignored, especially if the two are of same rank or in totally different units. The bigger problem is that there are so few women in Briggs, even less than in Central or the other big cities' headquarters. Some even think there are no women in Briggs."

"Right. In Central, they just fire soldiers who have intimate relationships with other soldiers."

"So I've heard."

"Well well. I guess I could play around with some couples, it's not like I'd have something else to do all the time. Do you have names?"

"There's... Sergeant Vincent Humber and Sergeant Terry Northrop." Envy could tell by the way in which he said the names that Linke fancied Northrop and disliked Humber. "And Private Lois Loyd who was with Blohm, but I think she is with Major Sopwith now. She's sort of new but I think she changes her partner pretty often. There's also Private Annie Anson who's with some other private but I don't know his name."

"I see."

They drove and did not speak much for the rest of the trip to North City. Their party could have continued a bit further but their commanding officer decided that it would be better to stay the night in North City, get some supplies and continue tomorrow. While most of the soldiers slept, Envy decided to have some fun and went into a bar to cause trouble. It managed to not go too far and created a ruckus that did not escalate beyond a fistfight. While not exactly glorious, the tiff was still entertaining enough.

Envy then slept for about two hours. In the morning, the First Lieutenant who had coordinated the loading of supplies in Central came to get some soldiers to load new supplies. She chose Envy and five others who were awake.

"You're that strong kid I saw yesterday, aren't you? Are you new?" asked the First Lieutenant from Envy as they made their way toward the trucks.

"Yes."

"I'm First Lieutenant Amanda Massena."

"Warrant Officer Envy."

"Whose squad are you in?"

"Captain Blohm's."

"I see."

There was a short pause that one of the other soldiers interrupted. "How come you're so strong?"

"I guess I'm just lucky."

The soldier uttered a sound of dissatisfaction. Envy was glad he did not start bothering it with more questions.

The six loaded some more boxes into a truck that had extra space, and refilled the trucks' fuel tanks. Having done that, they rejoined the other soldiers, had breakfast and got on the road again.

Envy and Linke talked a little during the trip, mostly about history because Linke wanted to hear from it what had actually happened and compare its stories with what he had read from books. Based on their current and previous exchanges of words, Envy came to the conclusion that Linke could be a potential friend. While it thought that he was mildly annoying, somewhat of a pansy and naïve, on human standards he was smart, callous and strict. Even though he had a rank higher than Envy's, he did not treat it much like a subordinate. Envy guessed that he acted that way because he expressed more respect to people older than him. He seemed confused when it acted as young as it looked.


	6. Arrival

The trip from North City to Fort Briggs did not take the whole day but it was close to evening when they finally arrived. The scene was harsh but breath-taking: snowy mountains and dark rocks as far as the eye could see, except in the south where they could see further down a vast sloping field of snow, even in the summer. Envy had briefly visited Briggs a few decades ago, and the place still looked the same.

They went inside the massive constructed wall and drove to the loading platforms. Some of the soldiers who had stayed behind to hold the Fort greeted them and helped them unload the equipment and supplies. It turned out that three Central soldiers had also been sent to Briggs. The native Briggs soldiers assumed that the three and Envy knew each other, but Envy made it clear that it had had no business with the others. Also one of the Central soldiers did not know the other two but soon became friends with them. The three were not assigned to Blohm.

Once the boxes had been unloaded, some of the soldiers left and the rest started inspecting the boxes. In Fort Briggs, one could never be too paranoid with respect to Drachman spies, even if there usually were none. Most often the spies were found loitering in North City or hiking in the mountains, after which they were usually either executed or sent back to their homeland, depending on what they seemed to have been doing. However, this time, a spy had made it as far as the loading area of Fort Briggs.

The spy was inside a locked crate that had to be opened forcibly. Once the soldier who had broken the locking mechanism peered inside, he promptly received a bullet in the head. He fell down and the spy leaped out, trying to head to safety. The spy ran quickly toward a door in a covered corner of the area, but a Briggs soldier was just in the doorway and managed to pull the fortified door shut and lock it before the spy could get through. The spy was trapped.

The soldiers who had been conducting the inspections had heard the gunshot and some had seen the spy run, but they had only now managed to take cover and pull out their firearms. The spy might have been in a dead end now, but it was a well-protected dead end, with a relatively narrow covered passage leading to the door. If the soldiers wanted to take out the spy, they would need to expose themselves.

The soldier who had been shot in the head was directly in the spy's line of sight.

Envy was behind a truck, following the situation with mild interest.

Next to Envy was Captain Blohm who was cursing. "Goddarnit! We need to check if he's alive... but the enemy will shoot if we go there. Hey you, you can go there and carry him back here, right?"

"Me? Do you think I'll just run there to get shot at?" asked Envy.

"You CAN do it. We can't."

"Forget it. I'm not responsible for your inadequacies."

They heard as the spy shot at someone who had tried to aim a gun at him. The soldier yelped but said that the bullet had only hit his gun and knocked it out of his hand.

"I'm ordering you!"

"I don't have to obey a stupid order like that! Just go get a tank and run over the spy and those walls."

"There's no time, we need to get him right now!" Blohm waved at the bleeding soldier. A couple of soldiers next to Envy were talking about getting a large shield for cover but said that there was nothing available.

"He got shot in the head! He's dead! Just drive the truck... wait, are those doors and windows bullet-proof?" it asked as it looked and pointed at the fortified truck parked next to the wall.

"Um, well, yes. But that – – what are you doing? Hey, get back here!"

Envy ran over to the fortified truck and tore the front door right off of the driver's compartment. The other soldiers stared at it, most with their mouths open. It then ran toward the spy, carrying the door in front of itself. "Excuse me, Captain!" it said in a condescending tone as it passed Blohm. As Envy reached the spy's line of fire, it placed the door down, looked at the spy through the bullet-proofed glass and kept on running. The bottom of the door scraped the concrete floor heavily and the noise was ear-rending. Understandably, the spy was very shocked. He shot at the door but could not pierce it, though the glass did get some shatter cracks. The last thing he tried was to evade by jumping to the side, but Envy reacted quickly and managed to squash his lower body between the car door and the wall. Envy quickly stretched its arm just enough to reach the spy's gun, grabbed it and threw it away. Having done that, Envy let the door drop on the spy, grabbed his arms and pressed his upper back with its foot. "Got him!"

Blohm and the other soldiers were rather flabbergasted, but they quickly understood that the spy was down and a few ran to check on the wounded soldier.

"Hey, Captain! Can I kill this little mole?" asked Envy.

"Wait!"

Envy waited until the others had managed to check that the wounded soldier was in fact and against all odds alive, though unconscious, and apparently not in immediate danger since the bullet had only grazed his skull. The soldiers quickly slapped a temporary bandage on him and took him away on a stretcher. In the meantime, Envy made the spy whine and writhe in pain by pulling on his arms and dislocating a shoulder.

Soon Captain Blohm, First Lieutenant Massena and two other soldiers came to check on Envy and the spy.

"Is he still alive? I see. Let's cuff him and take him to the cells," said Blohm.

The two soldiers put handcuffs around the spy's wrists while Envy lifted the door off of him. Soon more soldiers came to the loading area, prepared for combat. Blohm told them that the situation was over, and then they took the spy away.

Envy looked unfazedly after the imprisoned spy and lifted its arms behind its head. "That was almost interesting... What'll happen to him?"

Massena gave Envy a glance. "We'll interrogate him a bit and then he'll be taken to a court and probably sentenced to death."

"Now that sounds more like it. Can I take part in that?"

"Huh? I don't think so... Ask Second Lieutenant Schofield." She paused for a moment. "Can you take the door back to the truck? I'll have to ask the mechanics to fix that."

Envy sighed but picked up the door and carried it back, with Massena following.

"I have no clue how you did that but it was rather fast thinking... so thanks."

Envy scratched its head and did not really know how to react. Technically it had wanted the spy to succeed in killing even a few people, but on the other it had also wanted to smash down the spy exactly like it had done, even if it would have wanted to ultimately kill him. This way it had inadvertently helped the humans and now Massena thanked it for grabbing the spy. At least now the humans ought to like it more. Massena did not even ask it any annoying follow-up questions. It just stared at the boxes and said nothing.

"Let's continue the inspection," said Massena to the remaining soldiers once most of the extra ones had left again. Some of the armed soldiers that had just arrived stayed behind just in case. "And be extra careful. That spy might have had some suspicious equipment with him."

The inspection resumed, and one by one the boxes were cleared and sent to their respective destinations. They did not find anything particularly suspicious; the spy had had very little with him. Once all the supplies had been taken away, the soldiers checked the trucks and drove them in a neat row until they would be needed again.

When Envy parked a truck, it heard a discernible thump from behind the driver's compartment. The sound was that of a human body hitting a metal plate. Maybe the spy had killed someone and stuffed the corpse in there. Could it be another spy? That thought made Envy grin. It weighed its options on what to do about the case if there really was another spy.

Driving the spy out into the hall to be shot at would of course be the simplest choice; it would be fun, the spy would be exposed and Envy would earn another bunch of easy points in the eyes of the humans. Another choice was that it could help the spy and see whether Drachma would have more to give to it than Amestrians. Envy did not need to think long to decide that it would not give Drachma much of a chance since the country was terribly xenophobic and rather underdeveloped for a military state, with rules even sillier than in Amestris. Besides, if it deserted Briggs, Mustang might come after it even to Drachma, and it really did not want that.

One more option was that Envy could pretend to help the spy. It would coax the spy to reveal Drachma's national secrets and then magnificently betray the spy. It knew that Armstrong would not approve of such scheming under her nose without her knowing, and she would develop a massive knot in her panties even if Envy's idea regarding the spy turned out to be successful. Therefore, Envy needed to tell her about the spy as soon as possible, even if it would have liked to work behind her back and stick it up to her when it succeeded. It was fairly certain that she would need plenty of convincing to allow the spy to squat in her Fort and would think that pretending to be the spy's ally would not work. Having to play nice with the woman was loathsome, but it was definitely safer not to keep secrets from her. Envy did consider not telling Armstrong about the spy and extracting any information by itself and then just killing the spy, but it did not know where to put the spy, alive or dead. Letting Armstrong think up a good place for the spy would be just easier, and since no one else would get to know about it, Envy could probably just kill the spy afterwards.

Envy decided that the best idea was to pretend to help the spy since it would get to both manipulate the spy and score points in Armstrong's eyes. It left the driver's compartment and headed toward the truck's back. It opened the cargo doors and walked along the truck's fabric walls, pretending to inspect them. When it came to the spot where it had heard the thump, it suddenly took down the thin plating of the lower part of the wall, though it bent the holding clips out of shape when doing that. Much to its delight, it did indeed find another spy. It quickly grabbed the spy's hands.

The spy was a fit and rather ordinary looking woman who seemed to be in her thirties. Taking into account that Drachmans tended to look older than they were, she was probably a year or two below thirty. She was dressed in warm, dark and protective clothes. She just stared at Envy fearfully. Her left leg was stuck in the wall structure. Her gun and some other items had dropped to the floor when Envy had removed the plating.

Envy could tell that most of her fear was fake. It had looked into the eyes of people who were truly afraid and hers just were not in the feeling. It also noted confusion as she tried to bend its arms, only to realise that Envy was stronger than it looked. Envy let her bend its arms slightly to maintain the illusion that it was not superhumanly strong.

"Shh," whispered Envy. "One more spy, is that it? I don't have a quarrel with you."

"...Y-you'll let me go?" she peeped.

"That's what I'm planning." Envy let go of her and lifted her leg out of the support rack where it had been stuck. She stood up and watched Envy extremely warily. She was slightly smaller than it. "See, I'm not a real Briggs soldier, I was just transferred here due to some unfortunate circumstances in Central that you might have heard about. And due to those circumstances, my loyalty toward this country has taken a significant hit. So, let's just say that this might be a great day for both of us!"

"You'll help me?"

"Yes. I don't have much time now, I have to get back... But if you can wait here until night, I might be able to come get you and set you up in a good hiding place, if that's what you were planning on doing."

"Um... pretty much, yes." Her voice was quivering and Envy could tell she did not have an idea what to say, even if she was not as afraid as she pretended to be. She was just agreeing with it and might do anything once it left.

"I'll try to come back before two o'clock, but if you have to leave before that, remember that I will help you, so try to find me. And if you're going to leave, be really careful, all the doors and other possible escape routes are in very open spots. All right?" The spy just nodded. "Okay, go back there, I'll put this thing back in place."

She placed herself carefully in the small space. Envy put the cover plate back where it had been and bent the holding clips into their proper shape as well.

"Don't worry," whispered Envy before it headed outside again. It smiled smugly to itself, thinking how big an idiot the spy was being.

Massena appeared next to the truck and took a look inside. "Is there a problem?"

"I heard a clank when I parked the truck. There was a loose panel and I put it back in place."

"I see."

Envy stepped down and closed the cargo doors. It looked around and made sure that all the exits of the room truly were impossible to pass through unnoticed.


	7. Setup

The soldiers had inspected and secured the cargo and trucks, and it was time to head off. Captain Blohm was searching for Envy and found it next to a truck, looking around at the walls. "Envy, there you are," exclaimed Blohm. "Come on, we'll show you to our quarters."

Envy walked casually to Blohm who had a few other soldiers with him. The group then headed toward the lifts. One of the soldiers became talkative, and the others listened interestedly as well.

"Warrant Officer Envy, eh? I'm Sergeant Samuel Springer. Are you from Central, sir?"

"Mmm... yes."

"How long have you been in the army? If you don't mind my asking... you do look awfully young for a warrant officer."

Envy made a mocking grin that no one really saw since they were walking forward as a group and did not face each other. "Haha, I've been in the military pretty much all my life."

They arrived at one of the large service lifts and started getting in.

"How old are you?" asked Springer after he had stepped into the lift and turned to face Envy.

Envy twisted its mouth comically and folded its arms over its chest. It then stepped into the lift and looked at Springer so that he and most of the others could see its slitted, violet eyes clearly. Having done that, it turned its back to them to wait for the lift doors to close. "Old enough." It also checked the weight limit of the lift and concluded that it was powerful enough even for it and the other soldiers.

"Uh... uh... what was with your eyes?"

"Nothing."

"But they were violet... and slitted!"

"Oh... That isn't a problem, is it?" it asked, faking a tone that implied a desire for compromise.

"Ah... well, I guess it isn't! Just, you know, odd," he exclaimed in a somewhat bewildered manner. Blohm and another soldier who had not seen Envy's eyes just a moment ago tried to move and see them now. Envy looked at them, showing its eyes. Blohm looked rather keen but said nothing.

Envy turned back at the lift door and smirked, rolling its eyes.

They arrived at one of the floors with soldiers' quarters, got out and walked through some corridors. They turned into one side corridor that led into a plain but still rather nice-looking area that obviously served as a lounge of some sort. There were tables, chairs, couches and shelves. On the far end of the room, there was a corridor that had several doors along both its sides.

The other soldiers immediately headed to do something, whether it was unpacking, making coffee, talking to a friend or going to the toilet. Blohm gave Envy the quick tour. "This is the lounge and quarters area for my soldiers." He pointed at different things as he introduced them. "Most important things first: coffeemakers, coffee shelf, coffee mugs. Close followers: toilets, showers, bedrooms. That room right there is yours." Blohm pointed at the room closest to the lounge area.

Envy looked around itself critically and thought its situation was incredibly lame.

An inappropriately dressed bloke moved away from a recently emptied coffeemaker, leaving it to two soldiers that had come in with Envy. He held a full mug of coffee and made his way to Envy and Blohm. "Welcome back, Captain Blohm and Warrant Officer... um... hey, are you new? From Central?"

"Yes. Name's Envy."

"How do you do! I'm Private Roki Handley." He looked at Envy more closely and raised an eyebrow at its eyes. "Cool eyes. Say sir, would you a mug of coffee? I'm not going to charge you for it since you're one of us now!" He offered the mug he was carrying, and Envy had no reason not to accept, so it grabbed the mug. The coffee smelled stale and very bitter and tasted even worse, but Envy did not care about that. "Briggs is pretty famous for its coffee! How d'you like it?"

Envy shrugged. "Drinkable." It drank some more.

"You can drink as much of it as you want," said Blohm. "The bad coffee is always free for Briggs soldiers. They do it on purpose, you know. They buy the worst and cheapest coffee so that we wouldn't drink too much of it, but they see how well that's working..." He and Handley laughed and Envy just eyed them from under its eyebrows. It finished drinking the coffee and handed the empty mug back to Handley. Handley was not too happy to be treated like a coffee wench but ultimately did not seem to care too much.

"Ooh? Did you like it?"

Envy ignored him and instead talked to Blohm. "Where can I get some equipment?"

"You'll get it when you need it."

"How about some clothes?"

"What's wrong with those?"

"Would you like to guess what this uniform is made of?" it asked in an aggravated tone. Blohm had nothing to answer, so Envy looked at him intently and stretched its "sleeve", showing that the inside of the uniform was quite obviously attached to its own body in such a fashion that it was difficult to say where the cloth-like part ended and where its body started. It did not let Handley see that.

"Gah! What the heck is that?" he shouted agitatedly.

"What?" asked Handley curiously.

Envy put its hands on its hips and acted annoyed. "Captain Blohm, you are a moron. Do I have to spell it out for you?"

Handley was mildly shocked that Envy dared to mock a superior officer so openly, while Blohm just looked very irritated but contemplative. Nonetheless, the Captain could not seem to come up with anything.

"Are you serious?" asked Envy in an incredulous tone. "Captainnnn... please take me to the inventory office or wherever I can get stuff and I'll explain on the way." It closed its eyes and pressed its fingers on its forehead, pretending to be suffering from a headache.

Blohm still stared at Envy for a moment. "...Fine. Follow me." He gave Handley a wave and headed out, with Envy following.

They walked to another lift and rode it up while talking.

"What on earth was up with your arm? It looked like your uniform was blended into you!"

"You're a blithering idiot! I'm not wearing anything. The clothes you think you're seeing are just my own body that I changed to look like clothes."

Now Blohm stared at it with expression that slowly turned more and more enlightened. "Oh! OH! Now I get it! ...But doesn't that mean you're naked right now?"

Envy made a gawking face at Blohm. "Geez! Why is that the first thing you humans think of?"

Blohm did not have anything to say to that either. However, as they left the lift, he talked about another topic. "Hey, you may be some kind of superhuman or whatever – –"

"Homunculus."

"Whatever, and you may be older and better than us and all, but that doesn't mean you can just trash-talk to your superiors like you do."

"Tch! You insects aren't my superiors!"

"I don't care, but you're in the military and we have a rank system and you gotta obey that! If you want to boss us around, you have to earn it by being a good soldier and getting promotions. And with that kind of crap, you're not gonna get any."

"You and your stupid promotions! What if I just kill whoever is between me and that darned promotion? Huh?"

"W-what?" he exclaimed in a vaguely concerned tone. "You can't do THAT!"

Envy noticed that Blohm was taking its statements too seriously. Of course, it was being serious, but now it needed to say that it had not been. Otherwise Blohm would go on and tattle, and Envy was sure it would like the outcome less than comfort-petting Blohm's little brain. It put a hand over its face and sighed. "Nevermind, forget that. I was just kidding. At my age, one tends to get a little frustrated at times if you didn't notice."

"Uh."

"It was just talk."

"But you need to start behaving..."

"I'm working on that, you human," it said reluctantly and angrily in a muffled tone. "It's hard being in a situation like this," it gritted to itself, not caring that Blohm heard it too.

"I don't see it."

"Well that doesn't surprise me."

"I think you have it pretty good, and dang, are we tolerating a lot of your slander."

For a change, now Envy had nothing to say back. It had to admit that the humans were tolerating it, even if not well enough in its opinion.

"I mean, you drink what you brew, right? If you just mock people, that's what they're going to do to you too."

Even though the idea behind Blohm's words was not new to it, Envy managed to see it in a new light now. With humans the principle was obvious. Humans liked to return the favour to each other, like in the Ishval Civil War. It worked pretty similarly for homunculi too. Envy had always been eager to act on the smallest slight that humans did to it and pay back with even more misery than it had originally suffered. Father had wanted the power of Truth, and to contain that massive power, he had wanted to "kill" the people of Amestris, but he himself ended up being killed. Gluttony had always been eating stuff but ended up being eaten by Pride. And as Envy had gone on and on about its atrocities, it had only given the cursed humans more time and most of all, more reason to retaliate.

A point about the Ishval Civil War was that the downward spiral had not gone all the way to the bitter end because the Ishvalans surrendered and fled, even if only to save the last of their race when it seemed that otherwise they would exterminated. Even though the idea was disgusting to it, Envy saw that it was making a similar compromise in order to survive. It felt like it was abandoning its pride as a superior being and lowering itself to the humans' level. It quickly reassured itself that in a hundred years, Mustang would be gone and it would once again be free to do anything it wished... While patience was not exactly Envy's virtue, learning that did not seem nearly as demeaning as truly admitting that it was more similar to humans than it thought.

Envy recalled the smaller picture with which it had started its thought process. It accepted that if it treated the humans very poorly, the humans would return the favour. Thus it had to play along and better its behaviour. Envy straight out grimaced at such a distasteful idea. Even though it had decided to work with humans days ago, these repeating thought processes, new revelations and compromises stared getting on its nerves.

Blohm wondered why Envy had suddenly become very silent and glanced at it every now and then. He frowned at Envy's grimace. "That didn't look good..."

Envy gave him a mean look. "Respectfully shut up, Captain." It kept a rather sullen expression on its face.

Not a long time later, they arrived at the inventory office. It seemed to be a relatively large and quiet storage room with one officer and a small group of privates and sergeants doing simple work like moving and arranging gear and folding clothes. The officer was an older looking man with blond hair and glasses, sitting behind a large and long table and reading a large catalogue while drinking coffee. Blohm went to speak to him.

"Good evening, Warrant Officer Pommern! This is Warrant Officer Envy who just transferred here and needs a full standard set of gear."

"Oh, good evening, Captain Blohm... I say! You're just a kid! How did you make it to warrant officer so soon?"

Envy showed an ever surlier face. "By being better than you, worm." Blohm coughed loudly. Envy clenched its teeth and managed to apologise. "Errr. Sorry."

Pommern was obviously put off. He was not about to talk to such an impolite person, so he let the issue go and instead scrutinised Envy. "What's your clothes and shoe size?" Envy sighed exasperatedly and gave the man all the relevant measurements. "And are you sure you won't grow larger than that?"

"Eh! What is wrong with you, human? Give me the stuff already! If they don't fit, I'll make them fit!" Envy stared at Pommern and saw from the man's expression that it needed to stop now or the situation would escalate beyond acceptable levels. It could not make itself apologise a second time, so it just turned and walked away to the other side of the room.

"Um... He's having a bad day," said Blohm.

"Kids...!" remarked Pommern with some passive hostility.

Blohm went on and assured that the sizes Envy gave would be fine and that it needed underwear and a set of winter gear as well. Pommern and a private spent a moment gathering the equipment. Pommern passed the small women's underwear section and thought he was being very funny when he picked a few pairs of women's underpants for a kid he thought was a young boy. If Envy complained, he could just say that the men's section did not have such small sizes. All in all, the gear he picked was rather consistently of the smallest size he had.

Pommern put the gear inside a standard-issued bag. "Hey, Envy! Here", he said curtly and pushed the bag at it along the table.

Envy walked to the table and grabbed the bag. "Thank you," it said drily and marched out, with Blohm following.


	8. Conspiracy

After Envy and Blohm had exited the inventory office and were walking down the hallway, Envy started a new topic. "I need to speak with the Major General."

"Huh? You can tell your issue to me," replied Blohm.

"I assure you that this issue is one that I'm certain she wants to hear directly from me. So if you would, Captain."

"She might not be available."

"If she isn't, I'll wait until she is."

Blohm frowned but could not come up with any reasonable excuse not to take Envy to Major General Armstrong. He could have just denied it without reason, but that was poor manners even for him. "Hmh. Fine." He then started heading down the corridor, and Envy followed, carrying its new bag.

After some more walking, they arrived at Armstrong's office. A few soldiers were keeping watch in the corridor and in the waiting space before the office. They greeted Blohm and Envy as the two passed them. Armstrong's secretary, a blond short-haired Major, was sitting behind his desk in the waiting area.

Blohm stood still and seemed like he was not about to say anything, so Envy spoke to the secretary. "Excuse me, Major. I am Warrant Officer Envy and I need to speak to the Major General."

"What's your issue?"

"It's extremely private."

The Major looked intently at Envy who looked back just as intently. "Wait a moment." The Major got up, walked to the door of Armstrong's office and knocked on it.

"Yes," came Armstrong's voice. The Major entered her office and closed the door. He reopened the door almost immediately.

"She'll see you both," he said.

Envy and Blohm walked into the office, after which the Major closed the door and also remained inside the office.

Envy glanced at each of the three other people in the room. Apparently the Major and Blohm were going to remain right there. "Your idea of 'private' does boggle the mind, sir."

"Get to the point," said Armstrong.

"I found another spy when we were inspecting the trucks. Now, before you – –"

"Where?"

"In the cargo loading area. Yes, I made sure that she can't get away from there. And before you tell me that I should've reported it right away, listen to this idea. We could let the spy in and put her into a space where we could keep an eye on her while she thinks that she's well hidden, and then find out whatever she knows about sensitive Drachman intelligence."

"That is too big a security risk. Regardless, if Drachmans would give their secrets away that easily, we would not have to fight against them."

"How have you tried to acquire the information? By interrogating prisoners? I assure you that making the spy feel safe and tricking her into thinking that she has an ally will make all the difference."

"I don't think so." Envy eyed the Major General suspiciously. She had not claimed that it was impossible, so she was obviously a little receptive to the idea.

"And as for the security risk, we just need to set her in a place where she can't do any damage and can't get out without getting noticed. But if you don't have places like that in here besides your cells, then I guess we can just go pick her up now and throw her in a cell with the other one."

Blohm seemed rather enthusiastic. "I think it isn't that bad an idea, sir. We just need to find a good place to stash that spy."

Armstrong looked at her secretary who then offered his opinion as well. "No one has tried tricking the Drachmans quite like that before, so maybe it could be worth a shot. I believe Shrike could find an appropriate spot for the spy to hide."

"Hm, true. One more question," she said and looked sternly at Envy. "How will you assure me that YOU aren't going to give OUR secrets to the spy, and then help her escape and go to Drachma yourself?"

"Eh? Then you can just hide her from me too and I'll have nothing to do with her. It isn't like I care about her." Envy held a small pause. "But I'd be the best person to persuade her."

"Oh, really?"

"Really, sir? It isn't like I haven't manipulated people like that for over a hundred and fifty years. I have no doubt that she'll believe anything I say, and I can tell if she's lying or not. You humans have a whole world of indirect communication, like that blatant, overly stoic and statue-like stance right there that other humans think is creepy since it leaves them to struggle alone with their own little feelings because you don't reflect stuff back at them," it said and waved at Armstrong. Armstrong's eyes became slightly wider, which told Envy that what it had just said marginally impressed her. It did not really care about that. "Oh and going to Drachma? Not going to happen, that place is horrible as I'm sure you know. They don't even have proper alchemy or chocolate."

"And how is that important to you?" asked Blohm. He was a little confused.

"Apparently everybody but YOU know that what I'd like most is getting Philosopher's Stone. You silly Amestrians won't fall for it any longer and the other nations just aren't good enough at alchemy. It would take centuries to teach those idiots!"

Blohm was annoyed and not much wiser. "And the chocolate bit?"

Envy stared at Blohm incredulously. "What are you on about, you stupid human? Chocolate is good!"

The Major eyed Envy and Blohm disbelievingly.

Armstrong had leaned back in her chair and looked dully at the small ventilation shaft in the corner of the room. "Envy, hold your tongue." Envy thought about showing its tongue at Blohm or Armstrong but decided that was too childish even for it. A better idea was to transform its tongue into a long and prehensile piece of meat and hold Blohm by it. Envy had almost made the decision to do that when Armstrong interrupted its thought process again. "Rodney, call Shrike here."

"Yes, sir." Major Rodney left the room.

Armstrong went on about Shrike. "Warrant Officer Kaine Shrike is responsible for the ventilation shafts and the air conditioning machinery. He's a surly little man, but just as loyal as everyone else. He can find out the best place to hide that spy. Envy, I want you to work with him to make sure the spy stays exactly where we want, and you're free to go about getting secrets out of her. Don't tell her any of our secrets, and if she starts getting difficult, take her to a cell. I'll also want weekly reports about her. Give them to myself, Blohm or Rodney and don't write anything down." Armstrong paused and took a contemplative expression before continuing. "Shrike's superior officer is Roma, the ventilation expert. He is old and will retire soon, which means that they'll need another person there. While Shrike is small and fits well into the maintenance shafts, he's weak and can't handle all the stuck valves and what have you. You can, so you might as well become his partner. Any objections?"

Envy leered at Armstrong, but not in a disrespectful way. Blohm spoke before it could reply. "No, sir."

Envy shrugged. "Lame job, but I guess I'll live with it."

There was a short pause, but then Blohm started going on about tricking the spy. "We'll probably need to offer the spy some information about us."

"Envy can just say he doesn't know much."

"He could but I think the spy would be more willing to share if she also got all kinds of interesting pieces of information."

"Well then, work on a list of 'interesting' pieces of information to give to her."

Envy had already thought up some suitable lies to feed to the spy. It was now in the process of preparing to tongue-slap Blohm. While Blohm and Armstrong spoke, it stretched its tongue discreetly and let it wander along the floor and up the backside of Blohm's leg so that neither he nor Armstrong could notice it. It manoeuvred the tongue above Blohm's head, grew it to a size that would cover his entire face and at let it hover ominously over him until Armstrong noticed it.

She frowned. "What the hell is that?" she asked and pointed above the Captain's head.

Blohm did not have time to react before Envy let its tongue drop and slap him on the face. "Bluh?" he exclaimed loudly. He flailed and peeled the tongue off his face, while Armstrong saw what exactly had happened and looked at Envy in a tired and disappointed manner. Envy ignored her. "What is this? It's like a... a tongue! What on..." Blohm looked around himself and saw Envy grinning widely, with its long tongue wiggling between its teeth.

"Why Blohm, the Major General told me to hold my tongue but you seem to be doing it for me." The long tongue did not even impede its speech since it could control its mouth just fine regardless of the tongue.

"Why you! Darnit, Envy!" swore Blohm, obviously quite irritated, but Envy could see that he was surprisingly amused by the realised phrase. While angry, he gave into laughter anyway. "Ha ha, I guess I AM holding your tongue then. It's creepy!" He tossed Envy's tongue back at it and Envy just withdrew it back into its mouth with a small crackle.

"Hey, I just hope I don't have to keep an eye on anyone."

Blohm showed a rather stupefied face before he got the implied visual and laughed. "Ahaha!"

"Captain, you're way too easy," said Envy and wrinkled its nose at him.

"Stop enjoying yourself, Blohm," said Armstrong irritatedly. "And don't make my office a bloody playground, either of you," she gritted.

Envy twisted its mouth into a mock-pout and stayed quiet. Blohm stopped laughing and straightened himself. "Uh, sorry, sir."

They talked about what to tell the spy, until after a few more minutes, Shrike arrived and entered Armstrong's office with Rodney. He looked sad, weak and all around rather pitiful, though he did stare at people in an energetically scornful manner. He was thin and only a couple of centimetres taller than Envy. His eyes were bluish grey and his shoulder-length hair light brownish grey. He wore inconspicuous glasses and the standard Briggs overcoat of low-rank soldiers, though his had a dirty greyish brown shade instead of being natural white. It was obvious the discolouration was because his coat really was soiled with dust and soot. At least Shrike himself did not seem to be all that dirty, even if not exactly clean either.

Shrike greeted Armstrong but did not speak. He eyed Envy in an uninterpretable manner. Armstrong started speaking. "Shrike, this is Warrant Officer Envy. Envy, tell him about your idea with the spy."

Shrike was inconvenienced and looked questioningly at Envy who sighed and started explaining. "I found this spy that came in when we got back from Central. Instead of turning her in right away, I thought I could see if she'd be more willing to give out secrets about her nation to someone who posed as her ally. That means that she needs to be free in a way, so I need a good spot where she can 'hide' but where she can't get anywhere without being discovered while I butter her up into revealing her secrets."

"Are we allowing a spy inside the Fort?" asked Shrike and turned at Armstrong again. "Sir?"

"While I don't think it will work and make her reveal anything more than we could get out of her by interrogating her, there is a chance that it could. If there is a place where we can put her with only minimal risk, it should be worth a try."

Shrike frowned. "Hm... fine, I can think of a few places." He took a map out of his pocket and placed it on Armstrong's table. It was a rather undetailed map and contained a lot of extra markings, obviously made by Shrike. He pointed at four places in the map. "These four would probably work best. They're all dead ends, but these two have shafts upwards. One couldn't climb them up."

"Is it truly impossible or just exceedingly difficult?" asked Armstrong.

"...Probably the latter, sir," replied Shrike.

"Forget about them, then. How about the other two?"

"This one is near the heat exhaust piping. The temperature is high and no one really goes there, and it's a small space. The other is near one of the unused quarters space and the backup of spare accommodations."

"The latter one sounds better. Is it easily guardable?"

"There are two ways out of the area. The first one is a long corridor with two locked doors on the way, and it exits to the main hallway here. There are always people walking around there, so she couldn't get out unnoticed. The other way merges with the corridor system of the other quarters on this level, but since it's the last one, it's easy to place a guard there. Around here should be good."

"Does anyone go there?"

"Rarely. I think some people go there to make out. A patrol goes to check it out twice a day."

"That sounds suitable. We five are the only people who know about this. Keep it that way for now."

"How will we get the spy there safely?" asked Rodney.

"We can put her in a crate and take that there," answered Blohm.

"I think that would look a little suspicious."

"Maybe Envy could lead her there through the ventilation shafts!"

"That's impossible, sir," said Shrike irritatedly. "The shafts are too small. That place has no way in or out except the two ways I just mentioned."

"Oh... right."

"You know what would be the least suspicious?" asked Envy sneakily. "If Blohm walked casually from here into the loading area, then into the empty spare quarters and then back here."

"Um... how would that help?"

"If it wasn't you, but me."

Shrike looked very confused, Blohm blank and Armstrong and Rodney quite contemplative.

"The downside is that I'd have to show the spy what I am."

"Do explain how you could stealthily transport the spy by impersonating Blohm," said Armstrong.

"I'd place her inside me! Ha ha!"

Armstrong and Rodney made expressions of enlightenment while Blohm became confused and Shrike was outright perplexed.

"I see. I do not think revealing your nature to the spy is a good idea, but it makes getting her into the preferred spot unproblematic, so I'm willing to allow that. You can go get her and take her there now. Make sure to convince her to stay there."

"Well check then, sir. How do I get to that place?" it asked and looked suggestively at Shrike, leaning toward him.

Shrike stared at Envy with some passive hostility, not knowing at all what to make of the preceding conversation. He stuttered as he tried to start explaining. "Uh... uh, well, just take the lift around here to level five, and then walk to the end of the quarters' corridor system here. It's the er... tenth area."

"And what's a suitable place to stash her? Just some room or is there a convenient service hatch somewhere?"

"Uhh... there's a service hatch in a storage closet next to the showers on the uh... the showers of the quarters space on the left when you get in. The spy can't do much there since it's a dead end and most of the stuff has been turned off. She can't crawl into the piping or get into the walls or anything."

"That's all?" asked Envy and looked around itself before stopping its eyes on Armstrong.

"Yes," replied Armstrong.

Envy grinned at Blohm and changed its shape into his. Rodney followed the transformation curiously. Shrike was completely thunderstruck, so much so that he just stood in place, paralysed, with his mouth and eyes wide open. Blohm was overly enthusiastic.

"Wow! Wow! Do I really look like that?" the Captain shouted enthusiastically.

"You're SURPRISED at what you yourself look like?" asked Envy incredulously, using his voice.

"Well no, I just mean... it's different seeing me like that..."

"I can't tell the difference by your looks," commented Armstrong. "Don't talk to anyone while you're on your way."

Envy changed its style of speech and vocabulary to match that of Blohm's. "Yes, sir. But talking to people isn't too hard."

"Hm. Go. Blohm, if you would explain to Shrike what Envy is."

Envy dropped its bag into a corner. As it was opening the door, it spoke to them again. "I'll be back after a while, sir." It then stepped out and closed the door behind it.

"Well, he certainly got your speech down as well," said Armstrong.

"AUGH! What the HELL WAS THAT!" screamed Shrike finally.

Armstrong looked expectantly at Blohm. "Oh... Well, Envy is one of those homunculus things. Artificial humans that alchemists can make. He's a shapeshifter. And uh, that's about it, that's why he can do that. We fought against his kind in Central, but he switched camp."

Shrike just stared at Blohm and his shock did not seem to be wearing off. Armstrong waited for about half a minute while watching Shrike and observing his slightly changing expressions. "Are you less shocked now, Shrike? Envy ought to do well as your partner in maintaining the ventilation. Then, when Roma retires, I can promote you to replace him."

"M-m-my... uh, what? My what? Uh... but, but how... how can I... um..."

"What? Stop stuttering!" Shrike could not manage to say anything. "Do you have any objections?" Shrike opened his mouth but still said nothing. "Fine, it's settled. Teach Envy to do what you do." Shrike uttered something that Armstrong interpreted as an affirmation. "Do not trust Envy unconditionally. He is new here and not a human, and I have heard some vile stories about atrocities he has committed in the past. However, if he accepts us and works for us, he will be an invaluable tool. Report his behaviour to me, especially if he bothers you too much. Also, I want you to get to know that spy. Envy shouldn't be the only one who has contact with her."

By now Shrike just stared submissively at Armstrong's desk. He thought to himself that he could never handle this bizarre assignment and a half, but he could not admit to Armstrong that he was not up for it. Therefore, he reassuringly repeated to himself that he should play cool and not cry about how difficult the whole thing was.

"Shrike! Understood?" asked Armstrong sternly.

Shrike startled. "E-e-eh-yes!" he exclaimed with a high voice. "B-but... could you repeat it once more, sir? I... this was quite a lot..."

Armstrong leaned back in her chair. "Rodney, if you would."

Rodney took a while as he calmly repeated what Armstrong had said.

"Th-thank you, sir..."

"And don't get too shocked if he licks you with his three-metre tongue," commented Blohm.

Shrike stared wide-eyedly at the Captain, helplessly horrified.

"Blohm," snapped Armstrong, and Blohm straightened himself abruptly. Armstrong looked at Shrike. "Yes, Envy can do many disturbing things, which is why I said you should report if he goes over the line."

Shrike fidgeted with his fingers. "Uh... where exactly is that line, sir?"

"Use your brain to determine that. You should be able to."

Shrike just looked uneasy. Armstrong and Blohm gave him some more tips about Envy and the mission with the spy as they waited for Envy to get back.


	9. Play

Disguised as Blohm, Envy walked casually through the corridors and wondered what kind of mischief it could do during its short trip. It did not get to use any of its ideas, however, because no one stopped to talk. Once it arrived at the loading area, a guard asked it what business it had there.

"I lost a magazine when we came back and I want to get it back. No big thing really."

"Ah, okay, Captain. Go ahead."

"Thanks, now which truck was it..." Envy looked around, showing Blohm's thinking face, and headed toward the truck where the spy had been.

As far as Envy could tell, if the guards had been stationed the way they were now, the spy could not have left the truck. It confirmed that no one was in immediate hearing distance of the truck and entered through the cargo doors. It put on its best pretending face and went to look behind the panel where the spy had been. There was no sign of her or any of her stuff. It changed its voice to its own and spoke quietly, hoping to reassure the spy. "Darnit... I hope she's still here." It looked through the racks next to the loose panel. "Hey, spy, are you here? There's a reason why I look like this, I'm in disguise so I can help you out." It looked up and saw the astonished face of the spy. She had stuffed herself between the racks and joints that kept the cover and support structures of the truck's cargo box attached to the driver's compartment. "Ah, there. It's okay, you can come out. I found a good place where you can hide and I'll take you there."

"W-who are you?" she asked, astonished.

"I'm the same person you saw earlier, but I guess this requires some explanation. You know that we Amestrians are pretty good at alchemy, right?" Envy thought that it would be easier to pretend to be an alchemist. Alchemists were actually known abroad, whereas homunculi and even chimeras were unknown to most Amestrians, let alone foreigners.

"Uh-huh..."

"Okay, good. Well, essentially it's that simple, I just change my appearance with alchemy. It isn't a big deal, though of course it's massively difficult to do. Will you come out? I can explain better then."

The spy uttered an affirmation and started carefully and quietly getting down. She made it and stood before Envy, seeming very wary and suspicious, even more so than before.

Envy thought up a good enough explanation. "See, I've got these transmutation circles drawn on my body. They let me modify my flesh up to a point," it said as it opened the front of its "uniform" to reveal its chest and an intricate transmutation circle it had just made up. "They'll also help me so I can smuggle you out. I've never done this before and it'll be hard, but I'm sure I can do it."

"You'll.. you'll change ME to look like someone else?" she asked fearfully and obviously wanted to back down but could not.

"Oh, no no, I can't quite do that, I can only change my own body now. Transforming bodies is really difficult so it would be way too dangerous and out of the question. No, what I am planning is to change my body so that you can actually fit inside it. That's why I disguised as this huge guy now, you can easily fit in."

The spy was still shocked but less so now that she heard that her body would not need to be changed. "You mean... inside your body? How can that work?"

"Well, the basic idea is pretty simple, I just move my insides so that there's a proper space for you. You'll be quite fine there, even if the idea feels creepy." Envy paused for a moment. "Are you okay with this? I promise I'll tell you more but right now it'd be best if I get you to the safe place where we won't be bothered."

The spy seemed shifty; though her training helped her to control herself quite well, Envy could see her nervousness through her practised demeanour. Talking about alchemy and transmuting bodies certainly did not help to ease her mind; the issue was completely alien and disturbing to her.

"Please? I promise you'll be fine."

After another moment of hesitation, the spy nodded.

"All right. How much stuff do you have with you? I think I can fit some of it inside as well, but probably not all."

"Uh, there's... well, everything I have on me now. Roshof had everything else with him..."

"The other spy? I'm sorry about him..."

"Do you know what happened? Did he survive?"

Envy had to be careful now. It remembered being pretty vocal about taking down the first spy, so she could be just testing it. She sounded sincerely ignorant as of now, but Envy wanted to hear more.

"Ah? You didn't hear what happened with him?" it asked sympathetically.

Envy's manner of asking the question made her expect the worst. She sighed helplessly. "No, I just heard the gunshots and some yells. But I guess he... then..." She trailed off.

"He was hurt but didn't die, but I'm not sure if he'll live long. I'm sorry."

The spy looked sad but was not about to fall for her emotions. While she was good at controlling them, it was not enough to trick Envy who had manipulated such feelings for nearly two hundred years. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Okay. I'll also change my voice back to this guy's voice. Let's see..." Envy pretended to concentrate and then touched the transmutation circle on its chest. It faked the transmutation and reformed its body so that there was a large, conspicuous hole at the top of its ribcage, just below the clavicles. The transformation circle had moved lower on the torso. The spy could see that the inside of the hole was lined with skin. "Moving like this will be awkward as heck," commented Envy. "I'll make sure to not bend my knees too much, otherwise I might hurt your feet."

"Umm... how do I get... in?"

"Hmm, climb over there, I'll put your legs through first." The spy went and climbed on the racks where she had been hiding and stopped once her legs were at the level of Envy's chest. Envy took a hold of her feet and guided them in through the gaping hole on its chest. "Darn, this is weird, isn't it? Remember to put your feet into the right legs," it said. The spy mumbled something unintelligible because she truly did not have anything intelligible to say. Envy carefully stuffed the rest of her inside itself. "There. Are you comfortable enough?"

"Um. Yes, I guess? ...This is by far the weirdest thing I've ever done or I'll ever do, I swear."

"Heh heh, probably. Okay, moving isn't too problematic. I'll cover the hole and your face with the jacket so you'll be more comfortable breathing. No one will notice it." It closed the front of its uniform. "Okay? Let's head out."

Envy put the cover panel back in place again and stepped out of the truck. While it closed the doors, it generated a magazine of scantily clad women into its hand. As it walked toward the exit, it rolled the magazine up and stuffed it into its trouser pocket.

"Found it, eh, Captain?" asked the guard with a little smirk.

"Sure did!" replied Envy and showed one of Blohm's silly smiles.

Envy continued on its way and headed for the lifts that Shrike had pointed out to it on the map. Finding them was straightforward, as was riding the lift up. Navigating through the corridor system of the living quarters was slightly trickier, but Envy knew the basic layout and guessed the rest based on the design of the other military bases in which it had been. It eventually made it to the tenth area and found the spare quarters.

"We're here, this is the spare quarters and it's not used right now," it whispered almost inaudibly. The spy could of course hear it quite well from where she was. "I'll try to see if there's some place that's properly hidden." It then looked through a few doors that led to different rooms. Once it opened the door to the quarters space on the left-hand side, it went in. "Hmm, this looks pretty good. If that's a storage room, it should be perfect." Envy went and opened the door next to the showers. "Well, it's just a closet, but this should be fine." Envy opened the front of its jacket again. "Does this look okay?"

The spy peeked out. "Umm, yes, I think so."

"Okay, climb out," said Envy and offered its hands. The spy took them. Envy first pulled her halfway out, then knelt down before a crate and grabbed her by the hips, helping her to crawl out completely.

The spy sat on the crate and visibly shuddered. "That was so weird!" she exclaimed, unsure of what she should feel or express. She was rather sweaty, both because of her anxiety and because of the heat she had accumulated when she was inside Envy.

"Can't argue with that!" Envy touched its fake transmutation circle and pretended performing alchemy again as it reformed its body back to what Blohm normally looked like.

The spy was quickly on her feet again and observed her surroundings while standing on the crate. The storage closet was about three by five meters in size and there were shelves and several crates in it. "Does anyone ever come here?"

"I'm not entirely sure but a patrol probably checks this area out sometimes. Every other day, every day or something like that. I'll try to find out those details for you, discreetly of course. The showers and toilets are right through there so you don't need to risk a longer trip just to pee. As long as they work... I hope they aren't turned off just because this area isn't in use right now."

"Okay..." The spy paused for a moment. "Well... thank you. Thank you so much, I can't almost believe I'm this lucky! No one has ever managed to breach Fort Briggs before, at least as far as I know."

"Heh, you're right. It's nice getting to trick them! But I should get back as soon as I can, the guy I'm disguising as will eventually start getting around even if he's otherwise occupied right now. I can come back at night when I'm off duty. I'll bring some food too."

The spy smiled for the first time and hesitated a bit, but grabbed Envy's shoulders and hugged it. "Thank you. My name is Lesandra Sukhaja."

While Envy had not expected the spy to hug it, so soon at least, it was not taken aback since it knew that people had all sorts of strange habits in different places in the world. It patted Sukhaja on the back with one hand and smiled at her when she let go. "You're welcome. I'm Envy. All right, time to go, I'll be back at night, and I'll look as I was when I first met you!"

Sukhaja nodded. Envy left the room and closed the door. It then grinned to itself and figuratively patted itself on the back for a job well done. The spy belonged to it now.

Envy made its way through the corridors and arrived at Armstrong's office again. The guards let it in without any questions.

"Here you go, sir!" it said, still impersonating Blohm even after closing the door. "One successful mission, done." Having said that, it transformed back into its usual self and grinned very self-satisfiedly. "By the way, I pretended to go get this from the truck," it said as it formed its hand into the magazine and waved it at Blohm. "Just one guard with this blond, most horrible asymmetrical goatee saw a glimpse of it in the loading area so it shouldn't come up. But now you know."

Blohm blushed very slightly and Shrike shook his head a little. Armstrong looked mildly annoyed and spoke. "I see. Well then, Blohm, I suppose this is the one time I should be happy that you are that obvious." She sounded as annoyed as she looked.

"No kidding, Major General, sir!" exclaimed Envy happily. "Figuring out this little fact was child's play."

"How did you even..." started Blohm, not knowing whether he really did want to know how Envy could have figured out so soon that he liked magazines of scantily clad women. Of course, most in the military did, there was nothing strange about it, and many men even traded their magazines. But bringing up the topic in the presence of Major General Armstrong was very embarrassing, even if she too was on top of things.

"Hm? Are you asking?"

"Well, I am," said Armstrong.

"Very well then. Actually it was just that one comment. Just one! That's all it took. Remember that, it was quite literally the first thing you said to me."

"...Wait, what was... you don't mean..."

"Oh yeah, that was it. Now how did – –"

"Gah! No, don't say it!"

Envy even changed its voice to sound like Blohm's again. "'I'd change into a woman and sneak into the shower with women!'" it said and smirked.

"Charming," said Armstrong while rolling her eyes.

"Th-that's exactly what Envy said too!" exclaimed Blohm.

Shrike stared hostilely at Blohm but then turned to Envy instead. "Do YOU do that? Sneak into a shower just to see naked people?" he asked, slightly aggravated.

Envy could tell that Shrike was not truly angry at it or even the issue at hand. Otherwise he would have probably said "women" and expressed his disdain about the issue. In fact, he probably would not have brought up the issue at all, based on the wariness he had expressed before. Something else was bugging him and he just chose to lash out in this way. Envy did not feel like caring about his problems. "Not interested," it said simply. "Now stop smattering about this nonsense. The spy is in the left-hand-side spare quarters' storage room. Her name is Lesandra Sukhaja. I told her I'd go see her in the night and bring her food. I pretended to be an alchemist who could perform transmutation on my own body instead of lengthily explaining to her what exactly a homunculus is. Do you want some sugar with that? Are you happy?"

"Yes, thank you, Envy," said Armstrong, sounding more like she thanked it for changing the topic. "Procure the food for her on your own, discreetly. Also, take Shrike with you when you go see her and present him as your friend. You two can keep her entertained for as long as it takes for her to start spilling her stories or for my patience to run out."

"Check. Anything else, sir?"

"You'll have a few free days while we get the routine schedules revised due to our losses in Central. Get to know Shrike and start learning what you need to know about ventilation. That is all. Dismissed, all of you."

Envy noted that Shrike had looked rather defiant but decidedly silent whenever Armstrong had talked about him. Major Rodney opened the door and walked out. Blohm stomped out rather briskly and Envy followed him, remembering to pick up its bag from the floor. Shrike followed Envy and closed the door of Armstrong's office.

Blohm was obviously angry and petulant about Envy's little show. He walked quickly along the corridor and stopped in front of the first lift he came across. He called for it and its doors opened.

"Hey Captain, wait up!" said Envy and ran to him. Shrike followed, since he was supposed to take Envy with him.

"The lift is full!" said Blohm as he entered the empty lift.

"Pssh." Envy entered the lift and evaded Blohm's stopping attempt easily. Blohm did not try to stop Shrike when he came in as well. Envy pressed the button that would take them to the story where it and Blohm's quarters were.

"That was nasty, Envy," said Blohm like a defiant teenager. "It was really embarrassing! I hope you're happy now." He sounded bitter and sarcastic.

Envy truly was happy at getting to humiliate Blohm, but now it managed to not go and gloat about it directly. Instead, it went ahead and did something just as juicy. "I agree. That's why I barged in here with you, to give you an apology... I hope you like it," it said agreeably. Blohm turned to look at it with some curiosity and confusion, and Envy shapeshifted to present its "apology".

Blohm literally squeaked when he faced the form of Major General Armstrong wearing revealing and sexy lingerie. He stared at "her" for three seconds, pale and shocked, and only managed to turn his head away with a twitchy jerk when Envy started turning around to offer him another view.

Envy knew perfectly well that Armstrong was a mother figure to her soldiers and the men did not think of her as a potential partner – at least consciously. Its only purpose had been to make Blohm even more uncomfortable while outwardly making him think that it apologised. Envy thought that this was exactly the kind of ambiguity it needed to practise more.

Envy also kept an eye on Shrike to see how he reacted. Shrike had positioned himself next to Envy so that neither it nor Blohm could directly see him, and thus he had thought that he did not need to hide his reactions. Of course, Envy had grown a hidden third eye to observe him. Shrike was obviously shocked at seeing a nearly naked Armstrong and instinctively hid his face with his hands in order to not look. However, instead of not looking at Envy like his initial reaction would have suggested, he eyed it through his fingers the whole time.

"Aww, I knew you'd like it!" said Envy in Armstrong's voice. "Though... I understand, you don't really think of her that way. I get it. Well anyway, I hope you remember the view the rest of your life!" it said happily and changed back into its preferred form.

Blohm was quiet, severe and pale all the way to the quarters area. Shrike's expression stayed serious and contemplative. Envy did not follow Blohm right into the lounge but stopped to address Shrike. "This won't take long, I'll just go put clothes on. I hope YOU understand what I'm wearing right now."

"...Right."

Envy walked into the lounge and Shrike stayed outside.

Private Roki Handley was still loitering around, drinking coffee and dressed inappropriately. "Ah, Warrant Officer Envy! Hello again!"

"Can't talk, I'm busy." Envy managed to not sound condescending while saying it.

It walked toward the bedrooms and entered the one Blohm had designated as its own room. It was a little box of a room, only three by two metres, and contained a bed, small shelf, small table and small clothes closet. Envy did not stop to criticise the decor but emptied the contents of its bag on the bed and after shifting its "clothes" away, started dressing itself. For now, it only made sure that the clothes fit it. It did not even notice that Pommern had given it women's underpants.

After it had put on all the relevant clothes, Envy stuffed the rest of them in the closet with no regard for order. It left its room and walked back out, into the corridor.


	10. Stories

Once in the corridor just outside the lounge, Envy stopped beside Shrike and spoke to him. "Okay then. Where to now?"

"I suppose I'll just take you to follow what I was doing." He started walking back toward the lifts and did not seem to be in a hurry. "What do you know about ventilation and air conditioning machinery?"

Envy sighed and started listing subjects associated with the topic. "Filtering, cleaners, flow indicators, distributors, insulation, thermodynamic cycles. And no, I don't know everything about them but I've ran across and snaked inside them enough to have picked up some things."

"Um, okay." Once they had made it back to the lifts, Shrike started another topic. "Er, that thing you did in the lift was pretty scandalous, but sort of awesome. Eheh." He seemed a little nervous. "Captain Blohm's reaction was great."

"Uh-huh." Envy sounded emotionless. "He's easy."

Once they were in the lift, Shrike jumped topics again. "Do you have a true form? I mean, what you really look like?"

"Red and oval, about the size of your fist."

"...What?"

Envy just rolled its eyes at the lift doors and also changed the topic. "You know, since I have to present you to the spy as a friend, I should know some stuff about you. So why don't you go and tell me your story? I need to make up some nice fake story about myself, too. Are you a good liar?"

"Umm... no. But okay, well, I was born in North City in 1888. I never really knew my mom since she died when I was young, and my dad was in the military so I didn't see him very often. He wasn't in Briggs though, he was in North City headquarters. I spent most of my childhood in this group of other children and parents, I think it was some circle of acquaintances who let each other take care of their kids because they or their partners were away so often or something. Then I went to school and just spent most of my time alone. I had a couple of friends but other kids usually just hated me."

They left the lift and started walking along the hallways. Envy wanted to comment with something derogatory and sarcastic but managed to restrain itself. "Who were these friends of yours?"

"Violet and Laela... Violet was my friend until we turned eleven, then she said she couldn't be friends with a boy. Laela was my friend from fourteen to nineteen. I tried to impress her by learning alchemy but she didn't like it, so I gave it up. Later, out of nowhere, she just said that she doesn't want to be with me. There was nothing wrong with our friendship! I was so bitter about her because I just don't understand why she stopped being with me. I mean, she told me it was nice to have a friend who wasn't trying to hit on her and everything."

"You practised alchemy?" asked Envy curiously.

"Yeah, and I learned some more after Laela was gone. I'm not good at it though, I can just fix some minor things like fusing a cover on the broken part of a pipe."

"Hm."

"Anyway, I studied ventilation and air conditioning machinery in school while my dad was away on missions and always busy. I was twenty-one when he got hurt on some mission and I went to visit him in the hospital but we didn't have anything to say. So we just don't talk to each other. He's still with the military and our old apartment belongs to him but I guess no one really goes there now. One thing he forced me to do was joining the military, that's why I'm here and not someplace else. But I hate the darned close combat training, I suck at it."

"Do you hate your father or not?"

"No... He was just... well, he wasn't. He's just some human."

"Your two friends were girls but this far, it sounds like you've never had an actual girlfriend, is that right?"

"Uh, right."

"At the age of twenty-seven?"

"Yeah..." Envy was decidedly quiet for a moment, which left Shrike to lead himself into conclusions. "And it's not a bad thing to be a virgin at my age. I'm still fairly young and it's not my fault that there aren't any women here, and besides this is a good job. I think it's better to concentrate on that or just getting better at alchemy or anything. I can get vacations later and uh... find a girlfriend if I really want that."

Envy smirked widely and stopped walking. It turned calmly at Shrike and put a hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner. "Shrike, Shrike... I couldn't care less about your bad interpersonal skills. You could just as well fancy other men and I wouldn't give a crap." It then removed its hand and resumed walking while grinning to itself.

Shrike was dumbstruck and stayed quiet. He kept thinking about why Envy would not care and wanted to ask about that but did not dare to.

Suddenly they heard an obnoxious voice from a side hallway. "Hey! TWO half-pints! Is that you there, Shrike?" A big and heavy man came at them from the hallway. He had short blonde hair, an unflattering neckbeard and seemed to be in his thirties. While he was wearing a winter get-up, his Sergeant Major's overcoat and uniform jacket were open. "What is this? Did you find a girlfriend?" he asked exaggeratedly.

Envy stared at the man irritatedly and then turned its back at him and spoke to Shrike. "What is that thing? So rude."

"Uh, he's Sergeant Major Turan..."

"He IS your girlfriend, huh? I'm not surprised, only you could appreciate that kind of ugliness."

Now Envy smacked Turan across the face with its palm. "Shut up, you fat moron! Don't be so rude," it said, sounding aggravated but still displaying control.

Turan seemed both angry and confused. "Wait, you are really a girl, aren't you? You have awful manners, bitch."

Envy still kept its temper under control, though it would very much have liked to smash in the man's face. It stared at him condescendingly and noted that he stood mostly on his left leg at the moment. It took advantage of that and promptly lunged down to trip him. It kicked the back of his knee so that he lost his bearing and fell forward onto his hands and legs. Having done that, Envy stepped on his fingers. It made sure to not put all its weight on them in order to keep him from being seriously injured and noticing how much it weighed.

"Gngngh! What the hell! What the hell was that?" shouted Turan.

Envy grinned condescendingly and enjoyed looking at him down its nose. "Squirm like a salted slug! That's all you're good for."

"I'm going t– –"

"Tattle? That you had your arse handed to you by a half-pint woman after you insulted superior officers? Please do! Ha ha ha!" it exclaimed happily. Then it disregarded any traces of a smile it might have had on its face and stared at him murderously. "Get lost, little boy." It then stepped off his fingers and started walking again. It and Shrike did not look back to see what Turan did and instead just went through the next door in their path.

"Seriously, what the heck was that? Does he think he's a little bully boy in kindergarten?" asked Envy.

Shrike was slightly shocked after the small incident but managed to reply. "Uh, probably. He always bothers me when he finds me, but that doesn't happen too often, and he never actually laid a hand on me even though I always feared that. But you, you just..."

Envy looked disappointedly at Shrike. "It was about time to make him crawl on the ground like the insect he is."

"Um. Oh, we're almost there." They passed a small laboratory where a couple of military scientists waved at Shrike as he picked up a bag that seemed to be abandoned on the floor. He and Envy climbed into a service hatch in the ceiling and stuffed themselves into a small space that allowed access to the piping. The space was a narrow, unlit tunnel that seemed to continue past the room boundaries. "This pipe's gasket is failing at some joint... or maybe it was this one. Anyway, I just need to find the spot and fix it." Shrike dug a flashlight out of his pocket, turned it on and started walking while inspecting the pipes. "Uh... doesn't it bother you that Turan thinks we're together? Or that you're a woman?"

"Hm? I don't care," it replied nonchalantly. "Do YOU think I'm a man then, eh?"

"...Er, well, no." Shrike was quiet for a moment. "It's... I know you're a shapeshifter, but it's still hard to think that..."

"That's your problem, human."

Shrike was a little taken aback and kept his mouth shut. Envy wondered what his issue was about and wished it could have seen his expression, but since he was walking in front of it, it could not. Envy did not care enough to ask him about it.

They came across the broken gasket soon. Shrike said that it needed to be replaced, so he went and sealed the pipe on both sides of the fault. After that, he pulled out the pipe section to which the gasket was attached. He then removed the gasket and put in another one that he took out of the bag he had picked up. He put the pipe section back in place and unsealed the valves he had closed. He spent a short while watching and poking the new gasket before concluding that it was fixed.

"Okay? Are we done here?" asked Envy.

"Yeah."

"Let's come up with a nice fake story for me, then. How about I say I was born in North City too and met you when we were kids. Then I moved to Central where I studied more alchemy and learned to transmute my own body."

"Hm... but isn't that forbidden? I mean, it's human transmutation."

"She obviously didn't know that. Besides, I don't think small stuff like that would count as true human transmutation. I saw this Xingese bean do some healing alchemy or alkahestry or whatever they call it and she didn't get sucked into the Gate."

"The Gate?"

"Oh yeah, you don't know about it. When alchemists perform human transmutation, they get taken in front of the Gate. The Gate is a thing that allows people to use alchemy. And if they don't have any kind of fee for 'Truth', the 'Gate-keeper', they're going to come back maimed." Shrike looked a little disturbed. "That was beside the point. Anyway, let's say I got into the military in Central. I already told her that I was involved in the recent events in Central and things didn't go well so I was assigned here as punishment."

"Mm."

"How good are you at faking disloyalty? I think the spy's going to need plenty of evidence how we hate Amestris and stuff."

"Uhh... I'm pretty sure I can't do that."

"Geez, it's not that hard to say things you don't mean!" Shrike just looked down at the floor. "Stop being so useless, human! It's making me sick looking at you!"

"Well I'm sorry I can't be you!" he said and stared even more intently at the floor.

Envy scoffed and sighed. "The things I have to put up with... Okay, when we go see her, let me do the talking. You can nod along and look like you agree with me, right? I suppose I'll have to teach you to lie later! Also, you'll need some believable sob story about how you dislike things in Amestris and would like to help Drachma. What's the biggest thing you dislike about this place?"

"It's too close to Drachma..." Envy rolled its eyes. "Eh, I suppose the worst thing is people like Turan. Come to think of it, I don't really like most people here or elsewhere, they treat me weird. Of course it's important to trust the other soldiers in Briggs and we're sort of close like that, but most people just seem to think of me like some eccentric kid or something. I said I hate the close combat training; it's because I'm not strong and I never manage to defeat anyone even though it's just practice. Sometimes when I feel more energetic and try really hard to fight and improve, the others just sit on me or hold me in place." Shrike looked disgusted and sounded whiny. "It's so humiliating, I keep trying to move but it's like I'm being squashed under a giant boot!" he snapped and turned away from Envy while grabbing a pipe and squeezing it.

Envy had been amused and was about to laugh at the man for being such a pushover, but when he mentioned being squashed under a boot, its mood changed drastically. It shivered and grimaced at the memory of Mustang pushing it against the ground with his shoe, remembering how it had futilely tried to crawl away. Envy clenched its teeth and fists but managed to not start punching anything or start shouting at Shrike. It wanted to not think about the horrible incident. It waited until Shrike let go of the pipe and looked at it again. He looked sad and defiant and it looked intently angry.

"So you hate some of the other soldiers? That works. You can exaggerate that by saying that they beat you up, break your glasses, prevent you from getting promotions and steal your money or whatever," it said sternly.

"Mh."

"Also, you're a wary reserved person, exaggerate that too. Then she won't mind that you won't say much since she'll think you're very shy."

Shrike looked a little put off and turned his eyes away from Envy. "You sure go into details about me..."

"Details, eh? The fact that you're reserved is written on your forehead with letters this big. I could see it the moment you walked into Armstrong's office."

Shrike looked inconvenienced. "Is it really that easy to see what I'm like?"

"I don't know about you humans, but it is rather obvious to me. And now that I recall, Armstrong used a similar description when she told me who you were." Envy held a small pause and then continued. "We shouldn't ask about the spy's secrets right away. Instead, we should offer her some so-called facts first and wait for her to ask whether we want something in return. She might not ask, but then I'll just hint at it or something. Go ahead, come up with some plausible and supposedly useful lies about this place."

Envy and Shrike spent the rest of their time that evening finishing their personal stories and coming up with little "facts" they could feed to the spy. Shrike also showed Envy to the mess where they ate. Envy discreetly stashed some food on itself so that it could take it to the spy.


	11. Lies

In the night, Shrike and Envy walked to the tenth quarters area and headed over to the storage closet where Envy had left the spy. Envy knocked lightly on the closet door before opening it and going inside. Shrike waited outside for now.

Envy turned the weak light on and could not see Sukhaja anywhere. "Hello? Lesandra Sukhaja?" it called, but not loudly. It then saw a little movement behind the grated service hatch on the right wall. The grate came off and carefully lowered onto the box below it, and Envy could see Sukhaja's hands holding it. After placing down the grate, she squirmed nimbly out of the access tunnel and hopped quietly on the floor.

"Hello, Envy," she said with a small smile.

Envy smiled back and opened a bag it was carrying. The bag was the same kind that Shrike had had and contained some tools needed in piping and machinery maintenance, but currently it also had some food and coffee that Envy took out and placed on yet another crate. "Here you go."

"Oh, thank you." She started inspecting the food immediately and tasted it carefully.

"Listen, I hope you won't mind too much, but I had to tell about you to a friend of mine. It was just because I'm new here, so I didn't know about places like this in here, but he did. Don't worry, he also swore he wouldn't reveal your presence and promised to help you. He isn't too happy about how things are over here either..."

Sukhaja had seemed worried, but her expression soon turned into one of acceptance since she could not change the fact that someone else now knew about her as well. "Okay... Just don't tell anyone else, please?" She started eating slowly.

"You have my word. Would you like to meet my friend? He wanted to meet you so I brought him here."

"Uh, sure."

Envy peeked out through the door and called Shrike in. "This is Kaine Shrike, and this is Lesandra Sukhaja," it said as it introduced them. Sukhaja looked at Shrike curiously, but Shrike was quite nervous and did not even need to play up his reservedness for now.

"Hello," said Sukhaja.

"Hello..."

"Okay, I also found out that a patrol checks this area out twice a day at about quarter past six in the morning and evening. But I'm pretty sure the schedule will change at some point, I'll tell you about it when I find out."

"Is there any chance I could get an Amestrian uniform so I could move around?"

"Hm, you're pretty small... I heard my uniform's size is the smallest, but I guess that would fit well enough. I can bring you one at some point. But... I think walking around the place would be too risky. So many people here know each other and you'd arouse suspicion really quickly."

"Uh, you also have a small accent... the others would notice that," said Shrike quietly.

"I do? But I trained so hard to speak your language well..."

"It is pretty good but the accent's just noticeable, yes. I don't think it would matter elsewhere but here in Briggs people would tack on to it," said Envy. "But I'll get you a uniform, then at least if you're accidentally seen in here, you have a chance that they won't think you're a spy."

"Hmm... but I need some way to get around and gather information."

"You can crawl through the ventilation shafts up there, right?" said Envy and pointed to the open hatch. "Shrike, where do they lead?"

"Um, uh... well, it's sort of hard to say... I mean, they go to lots of places but..."

"Oh heh." Envy spoke to Sukhaja again. "That means he doesn't know. But we'll find it out for you tomorrow.

"Just... um... don't go inside the piping itself even if you find one large enough, it could be dangerous and there are alarms in them."

Sukhaja looked inconvenienced and a little disappointed. "How will I get around and collect information then?"

"Oh, we could do that for you! It'd be far less suspicious that way. Of course we can't access everything but we ought to be able to do something..."

Sukhaja looked both excited and suspicious. "But how can I know the information you'll bring is correct?"

"What? We wouldn't lie to you! ...Why would we lie to you?"

"I just need to be careful, wrong information could cost... anything. Last year there was that horrible carnage right on our side of the Fort, just because of some wrong information."

"Oh, that... That was pretty awful. I just heard a little about it since I was in Central then. But, I swear we wouldn't bring you any fake information or anything. We want to help you so your country can do something with ours, things really aren't too good here. The government is totally corrupted and the recent incidents in Central just made it worse. I'm almost relieved I only got sent here and not anything worse."

Sukhaja looked at Envy in a sympathetic manner, but Envy could tell it was fake. It did not know why she was faking her sympathy, though, but guessed it was because she felt too bitter about her dead comrades.

"Oh darn... I hope that the information we can find isn't false. I wouldn't be surprised if the plots went just as deep here as in Central."

Sukhaja sighed. "Uhh, they said this mission would be extremely difficult but this is pushing it pretty far."

"Well, I hope we can make it easier for you. Should we go over what you want to know?"

The three spent some time going over what Sukhaja would like to know about Fort Briggs and the military organisation of Amestris. Envy and Shrike already gave her a few made-up snippets of information and stuff that was so secret it could be read in the newspapers.

They did not speak very long. Envy and Shrike left her and headed toward their quarters. Envy was irritated at having to play excessively nice for so long but also satisfied that the spy was buying its lies.

Shrike stopped Envy before they got to the area where the others moved.

"How could you just... sound so different and natural when you were talking to her?"

"What? It's not like that's hard."

"But I have no idea how I could do that."

Envy looked annoyed. "You humans are so pitiful. I don't care why you can't put on a good pretending face, and now I'm pretty sure I don't want to bang my head against a wall trying to teach you," it said in a slightly disgusted tone. "You should just stay away from her."

"Would I like to!" exclaimed Shrike. "But Major General Armstrong thought I should keep in touch with her too. Said she couldn't trust you and that you shouldn't be the only one who sees her."

"Oh? Well then just see her rarely and don't talk much."

"Um, don't you mind that Armstrong doesn't trust you?"

"Eh, it's so obvious it doesn't need to be said aloud," said Envy dismissively. "I don't know what she told about me to you, but thinking that she trusts me would be the naivest thing ever."

"Uh, okay."

Shrike was still confused about how Envy could completely change its demeanour while talking to the spy. He thought it had been a disgusting liar, too sweet and just annoying. Even the rudeness and hostile behaviour Envy displayed when it was not pretending was better in his opinion, and he thought that he actually appreciated its cruel straightforwardness.

#-#

During the next few days, Envy kept the spy entertained and did some spying of its own on some people in the Fort, mostly for its own amusement. It sought out the couples Linke had named and stalked Turan, only to find out that the man was a sad chauvinist of some sort who desperately wanted a girlfriend, had ridiculously unrealistic expectations about that and had even been banned from North City's brothels.

On the fourth day, Linke informed Envy and the rest of the soldiers under him about the changed schedules. He also gave Envy a list of things Armstrong wanted it to study. Envy complained about its lack of free time as it was left with approximately three hours of sleeping time per day. It did that mostly for the sake of arguing since it did not really care how long it slept. Even Armstrong's list did not seem all that bad, though Envy rejected about one-third of it just to defy her. Reading books might have been boring but certainly let Envy take a break from the humans. Linke was squirmy about its complaints, which was amusing to it.

Envy did not see Linke too often and thus could not try to advance its friendship attempt very much. When it did meet him, they got along fairly well. Compared to Shrike, Linke was outwardly smarter and more capable but also cockier, though he also seemed to be aware of his human weaknesses, especially after Envy informed him of them.

As more days passed, Envy became used to the routine in Briggs. It kept taking care of the spy and indulged her thirst for neat "facts" about Amestris. Since it and Shrike went often into the unused quarters area, they explained to some curious soldiers that there was a broken piece of machinery in a difficult place that needed long-time maintenance. Envy also read more than Armstrong had asked for, was too effective at simple chores and riled the other soldiers during combat training.

Envy found out that the reason why Shrike wore a low-rank soldier's overcoat was because it protected his clothes from the dust, dirt and soot that could be encountered in the service hatches and maintenance tunnels. The low-rank soldiers' coats were in abundance, so of course Shrike wore a second-hand one of them instead of dirtying his own officer's overcoat. He and the other ventilation shaft maintainers had a stash of them and thus Envy received one as well.

Envy got to know Shrike better as they worked together and noted that though the little man was pretty helpless, he at least knew that. He never tried to defy it and treated it with almost acceptable respect. He seemed to be more uneasy when it was around, but Envy just found that funny and natural; of course the presence of a superior being would make lesser creatures restless.

The reason for Shrike not liking most people became obvious to Envy when it saw him talking to them. If people treated Shrike like a child, he responded accordingly, seeming naive and submissive. In the rarer cases when people did address him like an equal adult, he acted the part, though he was still distant. Envy thought his chameleon-like behaviour was interesting. He did seem to have a flaw in it: when insulted or threatened, Shrike just locked up.

One morning a week and a half after Envy's arrival at Briggs, it and Shrike were working in a hallway. They had opened a service hatch on the wall to inspect why water was dripping from a ventilation shaft. The reason turned out to be a faulty water pipe, so Shrike had called the plumbers. Envy had cut off the water and started removing the pipe bolts to detach the pipe section.

In the meantime, Shrike became the unfortunate target of the bullying of two women who were off duty and seemed to be just passing through the hall.

"Hey, shorty! Did your tool bag get stuck in a shaft again?" said the first one, a tall, blond and regular-looking private.

"Haha, Kate, that was naughty!" said the other one, a sturdier sandy-haired private who was shorter than her friend but taller than Shrike. "What's that on your nose? Did you stuff it into a rusted pipe?" she said to Shrike. Now Kate laughed. Shrike wiped his nose instinctively, though of course there was nothing on it.

Kate scoffed and put her wrists on Shrike's shoulders, as if she was going to start to embrace him. Shrike blushed badly, and Kate definitely enjoyed his reaction. "Poor baby, can't you see we're just joking around? Would you like a comforting kiss?" Kate slowly drew her face closer to Shrike's, and Shrike panicked and turned to look at Envy who followed the scene from the service hatch, amused and grinning.

Kate's friend turned to look in the service hatch immediately. "Eek, a peeping tom!" she exclaimed in a non-serious manner.

Kate did not startle or remove her hands from Shrike's shoulders but did stop making advancements on Shrike and turned to look at Envy as well. Envy just looked at them condescendingly.

"What are you looking at, porcupine head?" said Kate.

Now Envy was no longer amused. It snorted at them and dropped out from the service hatch. It put one hand on its hip and waved dismissively at the women with the other. "Why don't you morons go back to where you came from?"

Kate scoffed again. "Oh my, what a touchy tiny bitch! Your hair is simply awful." Kate's friend giggled meanly.

Envy's temper was nearly full and it looked disgusted. "Shrike, she's physically harassing you. Punch the stupid slut." Shrike turned pale.

The women were amused, especially Kate. "Monnie, did you hear that? The bad-haired baby boy is telling this thing to punch me! Ha ha!" Monnie seemed both very amused and very confused and could not manage to say anything.

Envy turned wholly toward Shrike and stared at him hostilely. "Shrike. HIT! HER! NOW!" Out of pure fear, Shrike twitched and kicked Kate in the shin.

"Ow!" shouted Kate and punched Shrike in the shoulder, though he rolled with it and evaded most of the force even if he stumbled awkwardly backwards. Kate did not get to try again because Envy kicked her in the stomach, making her bend down, and then did the same to Monnie.

"Now squirm off. I'm going to enjoy seeing you crawl away like drowning worms on the pavement," said Envy as it watched the women shaking on the ground. It was rather satisfied that Shrike had actually kicked Kate.

"You're going to get sacked because of this! Attacking fellow soldiers and women on top of everything!" shouted Kate.

Envy scoffed loudly. "You're so dumb! Do you seriously think YOU would get away with harassing superior officers? What kind of complete imbecile of a human starts that kind of bad-mouthing?"

Now Kate looked up, shocked. "S-superior...?"

Envy took a step back next to Shrike, who was just standing paralysed, and moved both his and its coats to reveal the rank marks on their uniforms. Their second-hand overcoats had had the rank marks removed and no ventilation shaft maintainers ever bothered to put the proper patches on them.

The women turned very pale and scrambled up, though they both still shook and had trouble straightening themselves. Envy grinned widely and enjoyed seeing their expressions. "Do you have anything to say, worms?"

"We're sorry, Warrant Officers," said Kate. She was good at pretending to sound official and sincere, but once again, Envy did not fall for it. However, Envy did not really care, and she had said what she had needed to say.

"Okay, now start squirming."

Envy truly enjoyed what happened next as they actually squirmed. Monnie turned awkwardly and only partly around and stumbled as she tried to start walking toward the other end of the hallway but did not because Kate had not started walking. Kate just twitched, obviously wanting to both leave and not leave.

"Do you have something to say, Kate?" asked Envy.

"Yes, I do. Off the record."

"Go ahead, this ought to be hilariously pathetic."

"I'm going to make SURE that no woman in this Fort will ever speak to you, respect you or be with you in any way."

Monnie started to speak over Kate. "B-but... she's a wom– –" And Envy spoke over her.

"Ha ha ha! Bwa ha ha! That is incredibly immature even for a human! Listen carefully, you little tramp of a rumourmonger," said Envy and leaned at Kate patronisingly. "I. Don't. Care. You little pieces of trash can fool around amongst yourselves. I am not going to get mixed up with the likes of YOU or ANYONE else."

Kate stared at it hostilely before turning briskly and walking down the hallway with Monnie.

Envy smiled smugly to itself and went back into the service hatch to finish detaching the pipe. "Hey Shrike, how many of those total idiots does this place have? First Turan and now them. They act like massive brats! How could they ever make it into the military? Of course it isn't like humans weren't all idiots anyway, but those things just don't know when to shut up!" Naturally, Envy did not and would not think about or compare its own actions to those of the surprisingly immature bullies. Its preferred behaviour was not exactly better than that of them, but Envy was not going to face the consequences of its actions unless it truly had to.

Shrike exhaled forcefully and unstably and took a few steps toward the wall. He then leaned on it, slumped down and rested with his head between and arms around his knees. His hair fell down and covered what was still visible of his face.

Envy looked at him with some disdain. "Eh, fine, be that way."

Shrike was still sitting on the floor when the plumbers arrived. They looked at him questioningly.

"He's having massive personal issues," said Envy. "I took out the faulty pipe." It tossed the pipe section at the plumber who had his both hands free and then pointed at the floor next to the service hatch. "The bits are there."

"Okay. Who are you?"

"Warrant Officer Envy. That's Warrant Officer Shrike."

"Affirmative, sir. We'll take it from here."

Envy picked up both its and Shrike's equipment bags and then spoke to Shrike. "Hey Shrike, get up. Let's go."

Shrike made some breathing sounds that could have sounded like mumbling and staggered up with some difficulty. He stood in place for several seconds before taking out a piece of paper from his pocket and checking the next target on the list. After putting the paper back, he walked a little weakly toward the closer door and opened it. Envy sighed and rolled its eyes as it followed him.

Shrike was clearly shocked for the next hour but then seemed to start getting almost back to normal, though he kept even quieter than usual.


	12. Vitality

Envy was irritated because Shrike had been even more nervous and useless due to the incident with Kate and Monnie. At lunchtime, the two went to get something to eat in the mess. They picked up trays, got their food and unknowingly passed Sergeant Major Turan.

Turan moved his foot and tried to trip Envy, but because of its weight, Envy just moved its leg forward, bringing his foot along. It looked questioningly down and then kicked the man's foot away. "What is wrong with you?" it asked annoyedly.

Turan was dumbfounded because Envy had not tripped, but he did have a retort ready. "Hey, don't step on my foot, you clumsy half-pint of a girl!"

Envy kicked him painfully on the shin. "Shut up, you infantile olm! Don't try to trip me again!" It spoke loudly enough to be heard by most around it. While it did not care about the small bit of attention it had drawn to itself, Turan did and thus stayed quiet.

Envy saw Linke sitting alone at a table and walked over to him. Shrike seemed pale and unsure, and though he had intended to go to an empty table, he followed Envy to Linke's table nevertheless.

"Hello, Envy," said Linke when it sat down opposite to him. Shrike sat down next to Envy, and Linke looked at him curiously.

"Hmph. This is Warrant Officer Kaine Shrike," said Envy, introducing Shrike.

"Hello. I'm First Lieutenant Laude Linke."

"Mh," replied Shrike.

"I see you've made your acquaintance with that... What's his name? Torso?"

"Turan. He's a worm," said Envy and started eating.

"Does he bother you much?"

"Eh. Like I said, he's a worm. Whatever he does is meaningless."

"Um, well, he's been bothering me pretty much always," said Shrike. "But I don't really run into him often and he never even touched me."

"We also just met a couple of women like him, Kate and Monnie. But they were more like ants than worms," said Envy.

Linke wondered what the difference between ants and worms was in this context, but he was not so interested as to ask about it. "Hm, okay then. You certainly have a ton of food there," said Linke to Envy. "You sure you can eat all that?"

"Eh! I'd rather eat much less. Eating is annoying. It's only good if it tastes decent or better, and this stuff doesn't. Do you have any idea how inconvenient it is to maintain a digestive system? Chew, swallow, digest, excrete." Envy sighed and poked at the food.

"I guess we're used to having one," said Linke in an odd tone.

"And there's so much stuff that can't be used for..." Envy trailed off as its expression changed into a keenly contemplative one. "Or maybe it can. I just need to... hm." It then stuffed the food down its throat with a few fast moves of its fork and somewhat enlarged tongue, making both Linke and Shrike stare at it in a mixture or disgust and awe. It then leaned on the table, crossed its fingers, laid its chin on them and kept its focused expression while sitting quietly.

"That was disturbing. What were you about to say? What are you doing?" asked Linke. Envy stared at him hostilely. "Huh..." He spent a moment finishing his lunch. "Whose squad are you in?" he asked from Shrike.

"First Lieutenant Massena's, but I'm in specialist duty under Second Lieutenant Roma."

"Roma... Ah, ventilation, right?"

"Yeah."

The two men talked a little more while Shrike too finished his lunch, though Shrike was not much of a conversationalist.

Eventually they both were done eating and got up to leave.

"Envy? Are you coming?" asked Linke.

Envy got up absent-mindedly and followed the other two to take its tray away.

"What are you thinking about that's so interesting?" asked Linke again once they were heading into the hallways.

Now Envy sighed and finally replied. "What is it with you? Fine, I'll explain. I was wondering why I couldn't use food more efficiently for energy, but then I realised that there should be nothing preventing me from doing that. Despite what certain people might think based on what I really look like – –" Envy remembered that neither Linke nor Shrike knew of its true form. "...What I can look like, that is, I'm an artificial human, and that human part is a fundamental physiological feature. So, all of my body works similarly to that of a human. But this is the great part!" it announced. "I can change that. I should be able to modify my digestive system to make better use of food than what you humans with your inferior systems can do. Then I'll need to eat less!"

Both Shrike and Linke stared at it questioningly.

"What, aren't you happy for me?" it asked aggravatedly, acting as if it was offended by their unresponsiveness. In reality it just felt superior since it was obvious the two did not understand too well what it had just explained.

"Uh, yeah, um," said Shrike.

Linke was willing to admit his confusion. "Okay... I just didn't really get it."

"Fine, here's the even simpler version. You know how cows can survive on grass, but humans can't? I could make my body so efficient that it could use grass for sustenance. Not that I would actually eat grass, it's disgusting. Was that simple enough for you?"

"Oh. Yes, I suppose so."

They continued walking, though Linke separated from Envy and Shrike at some point since he had his own schedule to attend to. Envy and Shrike headed to the next target on their list.

An hour later they were at a calm and remote location close to the western edge of the Fort. The place was colder than most of the interior of Fort Briggs, but Envy did not care and even Shrike was not too bothered.

Shrike chose to speak his mind then, though he had trouble getting to the topic. "Envy..."

"What?"

"Uh. Do you know why some people think you're a man and some that you're a woman?"

Envy looked at him with an irritated and incredulous expression. "Yes, Shrike, I do," it said in an annoyed and lecturing tone. It considered leaving the issue at that but thought that Shrike would just keep bothering it with other questions, so it gave an actual reply as well. "It's because I look androgynous."

"Why are you androgynous?"

"Why not?" Shrike turned his eyes down. "I may be human-like but I'm not human, as I just explained when I was talking about food. Your sexes are uninteresting. If you poor things feel confused about the way I look, that's your problem. I just find it fun sometimes." Shrike did not speak and kept his eyes down, signalling that he gave up. Envy noticed that he was still too wound up to have asked all that he wanted. "What did you really want to ask?"

"Um..." Shrike jerked up his head suddenly and became uneasier. "How can you tell that I have more questions?"

"You humans give off countless little signs about your thoughts and bodies and yours are blindingly obvious. You have no idea how to hide them! And that wasn't your final question either!"

"Uh, I wanted to... That bit you said to the blond about not getting mixed up with... Was that true?"

"That was an incredibly poorly crafted question. You want to know whether I'm interested in sleeping around with humans?" Shrike uttered something and looked down again. "The answer is no. I'm not a slave to some silly little feelings like 'desire', unlike you useless things." Technically it was a slave to its envy but of course it was not about to say that.

"Uhmh," mumbled Shrike and kept looking at the floor. He was quiet for a while.

"Are you done now?" Shrike did not reply. "Let's go back. Our shift's almost over anyway." It picked up its bag and headed toward the hatch of the maintenance tunnel they were in. Shrike did not follow it and Envy gave him a look but did not really care if he needed some alone time. It exited the tunnel and went back to the maintenance office of mandatory machinery.

After returning its extra gear, Envy headed to the small library of the Fort to read. As it was picking its next book, it thought about digestive systems and decided to see whether there was something to be learned about that. For a good week, Envy spent its study time reading about the way animals' digestive systems functioned and experimented with the insides of its body. It wanted to try whether its current modifications to its digestive system worked and as far as it could tell, it did manage to increase the effectiveness of its energy intake. Envy was quite satisfied at that.

#-#

After nearly three weeks of living in Fort Briggs, Envy was once again having dinner in the mess with Shrike and as usual, it was done with its food much faster than he. In its opinion, he took forever to eat even when it did not bolt stuff inhumanly fast. Bored, it watched as he worked with his knife and fork while it played with its own eating utensils by twirling them around in its hands. Shrike often hit the fork with his teeth while biting into the food and Envy found it mildly annoying. For a moment, it wondered why he did that. After it had thought about him eating his fork, it raised an eyebrow and looked at the knife and fork as it held them in its hands in front of its face.

Shrike thought that it was looking at him and lifted his eyes from his food. Envy was grinning widely and started bending the knife it held into a smaller shape.

"What the...? Envy, what are you doing?" asked Shrike incredulously.

"Heh heh." Envy held the fork peacefully in its other hand as it twisted the knife into a rather compact piece. "Cheers!" it said and threw the former knife right into its mouth and swallowed it.

Shrike stared at it with his mouth open and dropped whatever he currently had on his fork. "What the hell?" he shouted but not loud enough to attract others' attention.

Envy grinned at his reaction for a while and then shrugged. "I felt like I was low on steel."

"Bwuh... Can you – – can you seriously use THAT for energy?"

"I don't think so, but maybe all that metal will be useful."

Shrike frowned perplexedly but eventually just went on with his eating.

Envy recalled something that Hohenheim had said to it when they had met on the Promised Day. The man had suggested that Envy could change its body so that instead of breaking down food, it could modify other materials and create something more complex than the raw materials it had eaten. At this moment, that suggestion did not sound too ridiculous, though Envy had no clue how it could change its body to do something that strange. For now, it merely wanted to see whether it could extract the metal and add that to its own material reserve.

#-#

Two days later, Envy made its way to Armstrong's office to give its third report on the progress with the spy.

Having closed the door of her office, Envy flounced over to her desk while announcing its issue. "Good evening, sir! Breakthrough achieved!" It spat something neatly out of its mouth and into its hand. It then placed the thing in the middle of her desk and spread its arms up and to its sides but did not have much of an urge to say "ta-da".

The thing on Armstrong's desk looked like a drooly, partially melted and corroded small piece of metal. Armstrong just stared and Envy could tell even from her usually very stoic expression that she did not know whether to be furious, flabbergasted or disappointed. Her indecision was delicious.

Envy placed its hands on its hips. "I spent a week studying animal digestion and tried out some ideas. And lo, I can eat a knife, but digesting it takes a long time. Isn't it marvellous?"

Armstrong still just stared, but now Envy could see she was leaning to the furious side of her emotions.

"Oh fine, if you don't care at all about me reaching my personal goals, I guess I'll just keep it to myself." It then swept the little piece of metal back into its hand, threw it into its mouth and swallowed it. "The spy is coming along pretty nicely. Now she keeps thanking me for these funny pieces of information, so I figure I'll ask about Drachma soon if she doesn't ask how she could help us. She told me plenty of things about the town closest to the border, but that was all stuff one could read in a newspaper over there, except that the newspapers don't get to write that the politicians are corrupt unless there is blatant evidence that they didn't find out themselves. But even without newspapers the people know that most politicians are at least a little corrupt. Boring stuff."

"So no real progress?"

"Eh. She almost ran across some couple who went to the tenth quarters area to make out."

"My patience with this is wearing thin."

"Fine fine, I'll see if I can rush her. Oh, one vague but sort of interesting thing she mentioned was that after last winter's massacre, the heads of military were thrown off their feet and started planning some massive revenge. She doesn't think they can truly do that, but heck, if they're anything like in Amestris, they will surely try."

"Hrm."

"Anything else you want to know?"

"Did you break the small lift near the heat exhaust piping in area T6?"

"What? Hmm... No, the weight limit in that lift is five hundred and fifty kilograms and even I and Shrike together don't weigh that much."

"Hm. Also, I was told you've been violent toward some women."

"Kate and Monnie? Sure, they came onto Shrike and wouldn't back down when I told them to, so..." Envy shrugged nonchalantly.

"You're strong enough to handle those kind of situations without hurting anybody. Do it that way."

"Eh! I don't want everyone to know right away that I'm a homunculus and weigh four hundred kilograms. If I have to hold them, it'll be obvious that I weigh a lot."

"Stop making excuses."

"They weren't even hurt for real, the whiny babies."

Armstrong stared intently at Envy. It thought that her gaze was supposed to be intimidating and unsettling, but that did not really work on it. Envy also knew that Armstrong should know that, which meant that it did not know what she truly tried to achieve by staring at it. It thought that she just did not know how to make a different kind of stare. It stared back at her.

Envy grew bored in under a minute. It suddenly shapeshifted so that it generated a second iris in its left eye, which made Armstrong blink.

"Can I go now? I'm bored," it asked. "And fine, I'll try handle your little fragile soldiers with kid gloves if it's so important, sir Major General."

Armstrong leaned back slightly. "Fine. Go. And don't eat more knives."

"Blehhh."

As Envy left, Armstrong smiled very faintly to herself – she concluded that she had succeeded.


	13. Smooth

Four days after its unusually interesting report to Armstrong, Envy was once again entertaining Lesandra Sukhaja. It shared with her the latest batch of pieces of information it had made up about a hideous conspiracy about selling children for alchemical purposes. It had also brought her the latest blueprints for an impossible plasma propulsion cannon that it had gotten from a slightly megalomaniac weapons designer who liked to invent funny weapons on his free time and less funny ones during work time.

Sukhaja had inconspicuously taken a couple of quilts from the unused bedrooms and was using them as a makeshift bed. They sat on it after they were done discussing business, snacking on the remainders of the food Envy had brought and talking about lighter issues like silly people in the military. Envy noticed that she sat noticeably closer to it now than before for some reason.

When they were finished with all the food, they were quiet for a moment, and Envy noticed that Sukhaja was a little fidgety.

"Hmm? Is something on your mind?" it asked from her.

"Oh! Well, yes, in a way." She stopped fidgeting and sat straight. "You've done so much for me and I'd like to make it up for you somehow. Is there anything you would want from me?" she asked and put her hand on its thigh.

Even though she had not said it straight, it was obvious that she was offering to make love to Envy, especially after her last gesture. Envy felt very amused and struggled to not cackle at her face. It managed to control itself and pretended to be surprised and flattered. "Oh! Are you really...?"

Sukhaja smiled and Envy could see a tiny hint of nervousness. "Yes, I am pretty taken with you, to tell the truth."

Envy considered her words and realised that it could not tell whether she was lying or not. Issues of love and other similar feelings tended to be impossible for it to figure out. She could just as well be truly fond of it or be faking to keep Envy happy. Whichever the case, it decided to play along for now. Since it did not have a preference to having sex with her, it decided to act in a carefully knightly manner since in its experience women usually liked that.

"I... wow." It placed its hand on hers and just held it there. "I didn't think that you would be, I mean, since I'm an Amestrian and you dislike our country for good reasons."

"Oh, but you aren't truly a good little Amestrian any longer, are you?"

"Well, not really, actually." It made a small smile. "But this was just a bit, you know, sudden. I do like you too but we've known each other for such a short time."

"Three and a half weeks isn't that short... Especially since we've seen each other almost every day."

"Ah, that's true, I guess. But... I was wondering... When you leave, could you take me with you to Drachma?"

Sukhaja was slightly surprised first but considered Envy's words and thought that what it was asking was reasonable. She smiled. "It's a logistical problem, but I think it could be possible."

Envy showed an enthusiastic face. "That's great! Could I join the military there? Should I hide the fact that I'm an alchemist? What is the military like there exactly, can you tell me?"

Sukhaja kept smiling and started telling Envy some more in-depth stories about the Drachman military, and Envy thought that her stories were finally getting to the good points. Maybe tomorrow it could ask about secret issues.

#-#

The next day, Envy and Shrike were walking toward a door in a long hallway that seemed empty.

"You know that knife I ate a week ago?"

"Yeah?"

"Guess what happened to it."

"Er... uh, you threw it up?"

"Eh! No. Or, actually, I sort of did but just to show it to Armstrong."

Disbelieving, Shrike looked at Envy with mild disgust. "Ew, what?"

"I showed her that I was capable of digesting it! She wasn't impressed at all, can you believe that?"

"You digested it?"

"Sure did. It's part of my body by now, heh heh."

"Um... how could you do that?"

Envy sighed. "Because I'm just that good, that's why."

They had reached their target door and Envy was about to take the door handle when it noticed that Turan was in a side room with another soldier, and he was watching them. Now that Envy knew how badly Turan wanted a girlfriend, it could not resist adding figurative salt into his mental wounds. It leaned close to Shrike.

"Hey, Turan is watching us. Let's put on a little lovey-dovey show for him and see how red he turns," it whispered. It was sure that Turan would be incredibly envious if he saw that Shrike was getting more action than him.

Shrike obviously felt a little uneasy about the closeness. "Eh?"

"Just put your arm around me and kiss me."

"Gkh?" Shrike was rather stunned. Still, after Envy had started the kissing, he too managed to look like he was hugging and responding to it. Envy could tell that Shrike actually liked the display of affection, even though he was nervous. However, it just neglected the fact since that was not relevant to it. Envy generated a hidden third eye to watch Turan. The man did turn thoroughly red from anger and his expression of jealousy was brilliant. The other soldier just glanced at them and rolled his eyes.

Envy let go of Shrike after a short moment and looked around as if to check that no one was around. When it turned at Turan, it pointed at him exaggeratedly and shouted. "Yiiish! What a creepy butt-blushed baboon of a peeping tom! Pervert!"

It then opened the door next to which they were standing and rushed through it with Shrike. "Ha ha ha! Too bad he didn't start shouting or getting violent. His face was delightful."

Shrike was somewhat blushed himself but was smiling a little. "Uh-huh," he confirmed shortly.

"That reminded me, Sanja tried to make advancements on me last night. She thought she could just offer herself as payment for all the little facts I've carried to her, heh heh. What a fool." They referred to the spy by her nickname Sanja when in relatively public places.

Shrike was a little shocked. "Uh... Did you go for it?"

"Nah. I thought she'd like it more if I was all noble and said that we'd known each other too a short time. She wasn't as impressed as I thought but bought it anyway. Maybe she'll insist some day." It shrugged.

Shrike eyed Envy very questioningly but did not dare to ask his question of whether it cared at all about having sex. As they walked on, Shrike's expression changed into a rather sullen one and he seemed absent-minded. He knew he had sort of fancied Envy because he thought it was in some way perfect or at least much better than him and any humans, even if its personality was cruel and it generally treated people like trash. Shrike wished it would treat him better, and yet kissing and hugging it had been much nicer than he thought. He kept thinking that he would probably never get to do it again, and he could never ask for it since Envy disliked humans in the first place and everything pointed to Envy not even being interested in having that kind of intimate relationships. Shrike wanted to do something about his feelings but had no idea what, and he was not even quite sure what he was feeling.

They arrived at the correct service hatch, went in and started inspecting the large pipe that, according to the reports, was apparently leaking. They could not find anything wrong with it before it turned upwards. Shrike sighed and started climbing the ladder next to the pipe.

Envy twisted its mouth a bit as it watched Shrike struggling upwards like a little pitiful animal. It took out its flashlight and started stretching its neck, taking its head upwards while lighting the pipe and eyeing it. Shrike stopped moving and stared at Envy's head as it made its way up. "Found it!" Envy grabbed a hold of the ladder at the spot where the hole in the pipe was and pulled itself up.

Shrike just watched the mostly effortless moving and pretty much hated himself for not being able to do the same. He started climbing again. However, he soon saw Envy's hand hovering in front of him. "Come on. It isn't like I'm impatient, but we could do this faster."

Shrike hesitated, but only for a couple of seconds, and then took Envy's hand and let it pull himself up. Envy placed him on a ladder step one higher than itself. "See, there." It pointed at the crack in the pipe.

"Hmmr." Shrike looked at the fault for a moment and then leaned to put his hand over it. "I need to turn the flow off before fixing it."

Envy moved its light along the pipe and spotted the valve. "It's that one, right?" When Shrike did not deny it, Envy just stretched its arm and twisted the valve shut.

Shrike felt that the flow from the crack ceased. "Yeah..." He then searched for a cover patch in his bag while Envy directed its light at the bag. Once he had found a suitable patch, he pressed it against the pipe and saw that it would fit. He let go of it to look through his pile of drawn transmutation circles, but for some reason he did not manage to consider that the patch would drop if he let go of it.

Envy caught the patch before it had fallen completely off. "Hey, watch it."

"Umh..." Envy held the patch while Shrike took out his transmutation circles.

"You're not going to fix this with alchemy."

"What? Why?"

"I can see something's bothering you, and if you can't concentrate and do alchemy properly, you're just going to ruin this bloody pipe, and then we'll need to replace the whole darn thing." Shrike looked defiantly at Envy. "Put those little circles away and hand me the portable welder's fuel tank already. I'll hold it and the patch while you weld."

Shrike did put the papers away and took out the welder, welder's mask and two welder's gloves from his bag. He sighed as he gave the bag and left-hand glove to Envy and put the right one on his own hand.

"Can you close the valve at the other side of the crack too?" he asked from Envy. It did so while he prepared the welder. After giving the fuel tank to Envy, he turned the welder on.

"Okay, I'll hold the thing while you start welding here and move slowly while I move my hand off your path. And you better not burn me, you hear that?" it said demandingly.

"U-uh, yeah..." Shrike put on the welder's mask, tried to concentrate and started welding. While he managed to perform the welding just fine and did not burn Envy, he did do it rather slowly. Once he was done, they waited for a moment for the pipe to cool down.

"What is up with you anyway?" asked Envy. "You seemed fine when we left your office. Was seeing Turan that disturbing or what?"

Shrike kept his eyes on the pipe and did not turn its face at Envy. Envy, then again, followed his expressions carefully. "Oh, er... no, it's..." Shrike could not get it out of his mouth.

"What?"

"I just... wish I was like you."

Envy was rather surprised. "Whaaat? Like me?" it asked curiously.

"Well you can modify your body and do pretty much anything. Of course I'd like to be able to do that too."

Envy grinned to itself smugly. Now it understood Shrike's tone of voice much better. The man was incredibly envious of it! Envy could not help itself. It just had to laugh. "Ha ha ha! Mwa ha ha ha!"

"Are you done?" screamed Shrike, obviously hurt. Envy could imagine how much he wanted to punch it, but of course he would not dare to.

"Ha ha! That does rile you, doesn't it? You're a nice human, Shrike," it said and patted his arm. "I find humans who don't want to be humans much more agreeable! It's just right to want to be more since you things are so weak and pathetic."

Shirke was both confused and alleviated and did not know what to say. "Oh, um."

Envy had another revelation that it had not paid attention to before, since the issue was not important to it. At the moment, the idea of bringing up the issue was starting to feel very funny to Envy. At the least it would make Shrike squirm with uneasiness. "Ooh, you know, I could tell that you liked it quite a lot when I kissed you! And now that I think about it, you went all moody right after I said that Sanja flirted with me. Does that mean you're fond of me in that way?" it asked cheerily.

Now Shrike was so confused about his feelings that he could not even blush with embarrassment. His eyes and mouth moved nervously and he would probably have lost his balance if he had not been holding onto the ladder for his life.

"Aww, you are, aren't you?"

Shrike glanced at it but did not keep his eyes on it.

Envy had a surprised expression of some joy on its face. "Well, this is a first, isn't it? I'm pretty sure no human has actually liked me while knowing exactly what I am." It grinned, looking at Shrike's confused face. Usually, Envy would have thought that anyone who fell for it was an idiot, but now it seemed like Shrike truly liked it exactly for what it was, a better superior being. It had no reason to think that was stupid.

Envy waited for some time for Shrike to say something, but he stayed very quiet. "Heeey, Shrike. Do you fancy me?"

Shrike felt too pressured but managed to finally admit it. "O-oh... y-y-yeah. Uh, that's just stupid, right? I'm just some weak human... and..."

"Heh. Well, liking me is certainly better than liking some other pathetic human, for sure."

"Ah... But uh, does it really matter, I mean, I know you don't... get intimate with others so – –"

"Eh! Don't think everything is about making love or whatever. Even most human relationships aren't based on mating, are they?"

Shrike finally took his eyes off the pipe for good and looked at Envy without turning his gaze away. "...Oh! But... um, there's uh..."

Envy looked at Shrike curiously. "Wait a minute. You fancy me and mention intimate relationships, so that must mean you want to sleep around with me." Shrike was rather shocked and could not get a word out of his mouth. Envy twisted its mouth and snickered at him.

"Uh... er, I'm sorry," mumbled Shrike. He reached out to feel the fixed pipe and noted that it had cooled. "It's... it's fixed now."

"Hmm?" Envy sretched its hand upward again and opened the valve. Shrike did not feel the pipe leaking anymore, so they headed down and opened the second valve on their way.


	14. Action

Lesandra Sukhaja started finally revealing some useful intelligence about Drachma. While she turned out to not know all that much, Armstrong was relatively happy with the little secrets Envy got out of her. As far as Envy could tell, Sukhaja fancied it more than she showed. She was enthusiastic about the plans to take Envy to Drachma and worried about how it would be received there.

Two weeks later came the day when Armstrong's patience with the spy ran out as she thought that Sukhaja either could or would not reveal anything more drastic about her homeland. Armstrong told Envy to imprison the spy and take her into a cell. She gave Envy authorisation papers to take one prisoner's uniform and a set of shackles and to take the spy to the brig.

Getting the shackles from the equipment office was unproblematic, but Warrant Officer Pommern in the inventory office was not as easy. For a start, the man eyed Envy meanly.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"One prisoner's uniform getup, size four, for a woman." It tossed Armstrong's note at him.

He eyed the note, frowned and told one of the privates to get the clothes. He kept eyeing Envy. "Like your underpants?"

"Huh? Sure. Why, did you give me the wrong colour ones for someone of my rank?" it teased.

Pommern was a little confused. "Not feeling tight, eh?"

"No?" Pommern seemed even more confused, so Envy too started wondering what was up with him. It did not take too long for it to figure out the issue. "Eeeh? Did you think I was a boy?" it asked incredulously. "Ha ha! Stupid old man!" Envy continued snickering. In the meantime, Pommern just turned redder and redder.

Soon enough, a private came with one prisoner's uniform. Envy reached to take it while still giggling at Pommern. It then hopped out of the storage room with a small grin on its face.

In the evening, Envy packed some food, the shackles and the uniform in its bag and took two privates with it as it left for the tenth quarters area. It told the soldiers to wait for it at the appropriate doorway and to not let anyone in.

Envy made its way to where Sukhaja was and unpacked the food it had brought. They chatted a little while she ate, and when she was done, Envy took out the prisoner's uniform.

"Oh, I almost forgot. I had a chance to snatch some clothes and I thought that maybe you'd want some new ones since you've been wearing those for the whole time. It's a bit plain and I wasn't entirely sure about the size but I hope it'll fit!" it said to her.

Sukhaja looked surprised and grateful. She moved closer to Envy and gave it a hug. Envy thought that she hugged it for an unusually long time, and the reason became clear when she let go slightly and kissed it.

Envy could not say it was surprised, but it pretended to be. "Sanja?" it asked once they had stopped.

"Thank you," she said dreamily.

Envy was very amused. Now that she was already on the way to massive disappointment, it could not help but think how it could add some more insult to her injury. It did not have enough time to think before Sukhaja started opening its uniform jacket. Envy's amusement just grew, but to Sukhaja, it showed a very positively surprised face with a hint of concern. "Are you sure...?"

"Yes."

Thinking that Sukhaja would probably be more insulted by its betrayal if they had sex, Envy decided to go for it. Besides, this way it would get her to strip down and put on the clothes it had brought without any kind of trouble.

Discreetly, Envy shapeshifted itself to look like a male since it did not feel like explaining its androgynous anatomy at the moment. It understood instantly why Pommern had asked whether the underwear was tight, because it was now, though not uncomfortably so. It also remembered to invent some transmutation circles on its body, even if Sukhaja said that she had already forgotten about them when she took off Envy's shirt.

They spent quite a while making love to each other. Envy did not happen to think about whether Sukhaja would be worried about getting pregnant since it was all too clear to it that it could not get anyone pregnant in the first place. Luckily Sukhaja did not seem to care either.

The soldiers Envy had left waiting grew very bored.

Once Envy and Sukhaja were done, they lay naked in the small service shaft. Sukhaja had her hands crossed on Envy's chest and was holding her chin on them. She smiled warmly at it.

"Did you like it?" it asked.

"Yes." She snuggled her head against Envy and it petted her hair.

"Shall we go to the shower?"

"Is it safe to go now?"

"Oh, I didn't see anyone there and you know people come here pretty rarely. Besides, people won't look so closely if they see we're naked!" It started stuffing its and Sukhaja's clothes into its bag. Sukhaja giggled, with a hint of anxiety but mostly agreeably. After it had managed to stuff everything in the bag, they sneaked out of the service shaft and streaked the short distance into the showers.

They spent some time showering and Sukhaja mostly asked Envy silly questions about its body transmuting: "Why aren't you taller?" "Can you make that bigger?" "How about your hair?" "Can you create clothes?"

Once they had dried off themselves, Envy put on its uniform while Sukhaja tried the prisoner's getup. It consisted of a simple shirt and trousers and was greyish in colour. The outfit came with a pair of simple felt boots.

"Well, it is a bit plain but fits just fine," she said. "These shoes remind me of home..."

At this point, Envy had stashed its bag and the rest of the clothes behind itself and had an evil grin on its face. Sukhaja looked at it, slightly confused. "Ha ha ha! I can't believe how long I've waited for this, you stupid, stupid human! I got youuuuu!" It giggled and continued gloating. "You believed everything I told you! Even that stuff about the plasma propulsion cannon. It's just ludicrous!"

"Wha– – wha– –"

"'Waah waah!' Hahaha! Just in case you're still trying to wrap your tiny brain around it: this whole thing was just a set-up to get you to reveal some juicy national secrets. I never got Shrike to lie to you all that well but I guess it just didn't matter because you really are that gullible!"

Sukhaja's expressions were priceless. She changed from dumbfounded into desperate, defiant, terribly insulted and incredibly aggravated. Eventually she was just a big mess of all kinds of emotions as she tried to come to some kind of terms with what she was hearing. When she spoke, she was mostly in denial. "T-that... can't be true... please tell me it was a ...joke," she mumbled, not even believing herself. No joke could be this awful.

Envy decided to get the last drop of hope out of her. It changed its tone right back to extremely apologetic and agreeable. "Of course... Oh dear, I really went too far with that... I'm sorry." It came slightly closer to her and expressed sympathy and openness by its manner of bearing itself. As soon as it saw the small bit of hope light up on her face and in her nearly teary eyes, it straightened up and started shouting and pointing at her. "NOT! Ahaha! I can't believe you went for that too! Twice in a row. How does it feel to be so stupid? Amoeba, amoeba!"

Now something primal took over Sukhaja and she leaped straight at Envy, ready to rip its throat out. Of course, now Envy was well in control of itself and Sukhaja was not, so evading her was quite easy for it. "Whoa! Getting violent now, you ugly spider? Would you like to hear that the clothes I just brought for you are a prisoner's uniform? How do you like that?"

"You treacherous piece of waste!" she cried. She came at it again, but Envy swatted her in the stomach and made her crash on the floor.

"Oh and the sex was a nice bonus. I wasn't even thinking about it but since you insisted, I thought why not! I knew you'd be softer after it. In the head."

Sukhaja was shaking with rage and could not think clearly. Envy fished the shackles out of its bag and spent a short moment chasing after her and hitting her with them before it could force them on her. Having done that, it placed her on the floor so that she could not get up and packed everything extra in its bag again.

"Oh well, fun's over. But wasn't that just great, eh, Sanja?" it said as it picked her up and placed her on her chained feet. "Now you can contemplate on your humongously embarrassing failure in your very own cell! I wonder if I could get you into the same one where Ruslan was? Just to make it better for you!"

By now Sukhaja was ready to start bawling, but though a few tears fell down her face, she still controlled herself for now.

"Okay, start walking," it said and poked her in the back. She started awkwardly dragging along.

When they made it to the door where the two soldiers were waiting, the soldiers got abruptly up from the floor where they had been sitting.

"Sir! Er, who is that?" asked one of them when he saw Sukhaja.

"A prisoner that we need to take to a cell. Go ahead, Dornier, take the lead," answered Envy.

They walked in silence to the lifts and got some curious looks from other soldiers. Once they had gotten into a lift, Dornier and the other soldier, Handley, took a better look at the spy.

"Man, she's crying!" exclaimed Handley. "You didn't do anything improper to her, did you, sir?" he asked, not overtly serious but not too amused either.

"Huh? No, all that is just her petty little feelings of being upset at me for calling her a gullible idiot which she is."

"You sure took a long time with her, sir," said Dornier.

"That's just because she insisted I make love to her before I could imprison her, so I did. And in case that's unclear to you and your little morals, yes, she wanted it herself, I just decided to not reject her because then I got her to put on the prisoner's getup without any complaints. Then I told her I tricked her. You should've seen her face after that! It was hilarious!" Envy giggled.

"A-ha! So you are a boy!" stated Handley.

Envy scoffed and rolled its eyes very conspicuously. It turned at Sukhaja and leaned close to her. "Or AM I?" it asked very suggestively.

Now even Sukhaja understood that Envy could have just transmuted its body into that of a male. She blushed awfully.

Handley was very confused. "Arrrh, what? This is so frustrating!"

"Ha ha, little fools!" it said happily. Handley and Dornier dropped the issue and were quiet, not taking Envy's words as a serious offence.

They arrived on the level where the cells were. Envy and the two privates cleared Sukhaja with the prison guards and she was put into the same cell where Ruslan had been. Once that was over and done with, Envy went to clear up the things that Sukhaja had left in the storage closet and service shaft and took them to the investigation office with the rest of her previous possessions.

Now that Sukhaja was not Envy's problem any longer, it had no reason to care about her. However, it did not forget about her that easily because she turned out to be a little more interesting. The next day after it had turned her in, she attempted suicide but failed. Naturally, it visited her to make fun about her miserable state and did not even mind that Armstrong told it to leave the spy alone afterward.

#-#

In the evening, Envy had a night shift of ventilation shaft maintenance with Shrike and could not help but feast on its magnificent betrayal of Sukhaja as they walked toward the first target on their list.

"The way it turned out was great. I brought her the prisoner's getup and thought I'd just ask her to try it on, but guess what she did? She came on me and insisted to have sex with me! I hadn't even thought about it but I figured that it would be a great way to mess with her little feelings, heh heh."

"Uh. Well, she had it coming. ...Wait, did you ju– –" Shrike suddenly became more alert, but Envy wanted to go on with its story and interrupted him.

"She was a little bunny. Afterward we went to the shower and she just put on the getup. Then I told her how I'd tricked her and what a moron she was. You should've seen her face! It was something like this..." Envy checked that there was no one around, shapeshifted its face to that of Sukhaja's and imitated her expressions. Shrike looked at it with mixed emotions. He was sort of amused but also inconvenienced, not to even mention the other thoughts he was having about the issue.

Envy shifted its face back. "I made her cry, heh. She wouldn't bawl in front of me but today I heard from the prison guards that she sure did after I left. Oh and she tried to kill herself too! And failed! Haha!"

"Mh. I sort of think it would've been better if she'd gotten out of her misery."

"For her I suppose. She's not my problem any longer so I don't care." Envy shrugged. "Do you? Come to think of it, you're usually not too wild about hurting and toying with people, I've noticed that much. But now you said she had it coming."

"Er... I mean... she's just a stupid Drachman. I kind of thought that she'd notice something was off by the way I acted around her."

"That was the only behaviour she ever saw from you, so it wasn't that easy to notice, but yeah."

"But um... you said that... are you able to have sex?"

"That's what's bothering you? Still? I thought you'd forgotten since you hadn't said anything about that for a couple of weeks. ...But wait, are you jealous of her because you have your little feelings for me and she was the one who got to make love to me?" it asked keenly.

"Um..." Shrike blushed.

"Haha, I knew it!"

Shrike was quiet for a moment. "Is this why your name is 'Envy'?"

Envy made a short chortle of surprise. "Yes! Bwa ha ha!" it said gleefully and snickered.

Shrike was both flustered and quite disheartened. He looked glum and trudged forward absent-mindedly.

"Hm? Are you going to be moody for a few days again?"

"It's just... please don't," he mumbled.

Envy did not understand what went around the man's mind and was annoyed at that. However, now it thought to ask Shrike about the issue. It stopped walking. "Why? I already know you fancy me. Isn't it some sort of silly uncontrollable human thing that you can't help but like me?"

Shrike stopped as well. "Well... I guess you could put it that way, but it doesn't work quite like that, I think," said Shrike nervously. "I mean... if you keep being mean to me, I'll probably stop liking you eventually..."

Envy noticed the pattern of action and reaction. If it treated Shrike poorly, he would grow to hate it. However, at the moment, he still appeared to like it. It frowned and stared at Shrike. "So... Does that work the other way? For example, if I made love to you, would you like me more?"

Shrike's eyes widened in confusion. "Bwah?" Envy stared at him annoyedly until he came up with something more intelligible to say. "I... well... y-yes? B-but, um, would you actually do that? Just to uh... make me like you more?"

"Why not? Isn't that how human relationships work?"

"Er, humans usually want to make love to each other, so if you don't want it..."

"Eh. I don't need sex for anything, and I have no desire to have it or to not have it. It does feel good, but so what? Other things feel good too." Making love did not hold any particular importance to Envy; some pleasure here or there was all it was. Like humans, Envy was able to have sex and even enjoy it, and that was quite enough for Envy. It had no sex drive and saw no reason to become addicted to making love like what seemed to happen to most humans.

Shrike struggled with his thoughts for a moment. "So... are you saying that you'd... be okay with doing it with me?"

Envy realised that it faced a definitive choice. It could either laugh right at Shrike's face or agree to make love to him. Or turn him down more politely than laughing at him, but that would be boring. Of course its first choice would be to laugh at him and hurt his little emotions immensely. It would truly enjoy seeing his expression of deep mental agony. Maybe he would cry or even try to kick it?

On the other hand, Envy saw that this could have been continuation in the path to one of those trusting friendship things it had decided to pursue. Shrike was not too annoying, and Envy figured that sex would not be a high price to pay for gaining his friendship or trust.

Envy decided to play along with Shrike. Even though it was against Envy's nature to just oblige to a human, Envy wanted to see what would happen. It thought that if it laughed at him, it could guess how he would react accurately enough and enjoy its vivid imaginations about his expressions. And besides, even if it did play nicely now, it could always change its mind and hurt his feelings as much as it wanted at a later time.

Envy made a small grin. "Sure. Let's do it if you want."

Shrike's eyes brightened a little and a small smile appeared on his face. For some time, he just watched Envy's face earnestly, and Envy was a little confused as to why he did that. He was still, looked at it quietly and seemed to like what he saw. Normally, it would have thought that he was an idiot for staring at it so enthralled. Now it knew that he admired just it and its superiority and found that justified and correct. Envy even thought that it rather liked getting looked at in such a manner and thus did not do anything to stop Shrike. While the feeling was not nearly as intense, rushing or awesome as the one Envy would get from seeing him get massively hurt, it was pretty nice.

#-#

A while later, Shrike and Envy were in the service tunnel where they had just some time ago fixed another broken ventilation shaft. They lay on top of their overcoats on the floor and Envy twirled a strand of Shrike's hair absent-mindedly while Shrike breathed heavily but was otherwise immobile. He turned after a moment and looked at Envy's face once again. He smiled a little in the faint illumination of their flashlights.

"You look somehow more ...serene," he said.

"Serene?" Envy raised an eyebrow but did not feel like starting to argue. Besides, it did feel rather calm at the moment. If its memory served it right, making love did have a temporary soothing effect. It shrugged and closed its eyes. "Maybe so then."

After a while, Shrike got up, put his getup in order and spent a moment looking at Envy again. "Uh, are you always that androgynous or did you just shapeshift to mess with me?" he asked a little curiously.

"'That' androgynous?"

"Well yes, I mean, whatever part of you I look at, you look pretty obviously like a blend."

Envy smirked. It had not shapeshifted at all but did not feel like explaining that to Shrike. "Why, does it bother you?"

"Um... actually, I was kind of surprised that it didn't bother me that much."

"Well, good for you. Nice human." Envy liked that Shrike did not bother it by asking further questions even though it had not answered him. Some time passed, and then also Envy redressed itself properly.

"Can we... can we do that again some time? Like tomorrow or they day after tomorrow. Would that be okay?"

Envy rolled its eyes a bit. "Sure, why not."

They picked up their overcoats and bags, climbed down and exited the service hatch.

For the rest of the night, Shrike seemed marginally happier. The next day, he and Envy made love to each other again, and that time Shrike managed to be a better partner than a life-sized toy.

During the next few days, Envy noticed that Shrike smiled at it more often and did not feel as reserved around it as before, though of course he would not argue against it and as far as it could tell, he still thought that it was a superior being. Even if he was not that timid now, Envy made him feel very uneasy in other ways, like kissing or fondling him in front of others. However, Envy did not make too large displays and mostly harassed Shrike when only three or fewer people were watching.

Instead of making people think that Shrike was a homosexual, the displays of affection more often made them think that Envy was a woman. Of course, there were people who were fervent with their own opinions and Envy especially liked to listen in on disputes between people with opposing views, then reveal itself, call the arguers morons, laugh at them and leave.

Envy's manner of handling things quickly steered people away from it and instead made them bother Shrike. He hated being bothered, so he tried to always be in hiding or with Envy or a couple of other people who did not ask him any unnecessary questions.


	15. In the Ice

Now that Envy was not occupied taking care of the spy, Armstrong decided to send it to the mountains with a patrol to see how it would work there. She considered the possibility that Envy would flee but came to the conclusion that it would not, since it could have done that fairly easily even from within the Fort. She did not want to give it too much time to ponder its existence in the wilderness, however, and thus sent it on a short and simple three-day routine mission.

The patrol Envy joined was a group of five men, and their commanding officer was a second lieutenant called Russell. While he was a bear of a man, he was not very large and was obviously shorter than Blohm. He was a close friend of Linke's and knew that Envy was a homunculus and a shapeshifter but not more than that. The rest of the men were also under Blohm, so Envy had seen them around but had not bothered to learn all of their names. It soon got to know that the others were Sergeant Etrich, Corporal Taube, Private Junkers and Private Dauphin.

The patrollers gathered in the snowmobile bay the next morning, and Russell went shortly through the mission.

"Just a quick recap. This is a little three-day mission, so we'll take four days' worth of food and stuff. We'll go check out the current basic route in the west. First we'll go to checkpoint C with snowmobiles and walk around a bit and then come back. Okay? Questions?"

"I got one, sir," said Envy in a not exactly respectful tone. "How much fuel do those things have? More than enough to make it to checkpoint C and back?" It had already checked that the snowmobiles were able to withstand its weight, even if just barely, but it could not say anything about their fuel consumption.

"For sure. Well, not much more but enough so that if we find something odd there, we can bring it back."

"Right."

"Okay, anything more? No? Let's gather our stuff then." They started putting their gear in a small sled that one of the snowmobiles would pull.

One of the men, Dauphin, spoke to Envy. "You sure you'll manage in the cold out there, sir? You're pretty tiny."

"Eh, worry about your own metabolism, I'll worry about mine," it replied in a slightly irritated tone.

"Okay, sorry, sir..."

Envy thought that at least some humans knew when to obey and shut their mouths.

It did not take long for them to pack up their things. They then left and headed into the snowy mountains. While the sceneries were rather magnificent, Envy was not particularly interested in sight-seeing. It thought that the snowmobile trip was too long and exceptionally dull. The trip took altogether nine hours, including the time it took for Russell to locate the checkpoint that was not easily noticeable in the terrain.

Once they had found the checkpoint, they parked their snowmobiles around a large, steady-looking boulder.

"Okay, let's have a quick snack and then head over there," said Russell and waved his hand approximately to the north. He then pointed to west. "We'll go a wide circle around that valley and come back here."

Envy did not waste too much time eating. When it was done, it decided to get off the snowmobile to unpack its skis, but even before it had touched the ground, it knew it had made a mistake. It did not have time to withdraw or even think more than that before it sank right into the snow. At least it managed to spread its limbs so that they got caught and prevented it from sinking deeper.

"Stupid freaking snow!" it shouted angrily. Two of the others snickered a little. "DON'T LAUGH AT ME!" it screamed loudly enough that the soldiers shut up immediately and the others did not even think of starting to laugh. Envy managed to crawl back onto the snowmobile and fantasised about killing the five right then and there. It was quickly done with its imaginations and turned to look at Taube since he was sitting closest to the sled. "Toss my skis over."

It waited as Taube put the rest of his food in his mouth and got the skis out of the sled.

"Wait, are the skis different size?" it asked.

"Yes, these smallest ones are for you."

"Give me the biggest ones instead."

"What? But sir – –"

"Do as you're told, okay?" it snapped.

Taube looked at Russell. "Why do you want the bigger skis?" asked the Second Lieutenant.

Envy snorted and replied in a hostile tone. "They might stand a better chance of holding me on the surface."

"What?" asked Etrich who was sitting next to Envy. "But if the snow is that soft, then we all might sink, so – – HEY!" Envy pushed him into the snow next to the spot where it had sunk in. While his arms went into the snow halfway up to his forearms, his knees did not really go much past the surface, and he could stand up just fine. "What was that for?" he snapped aggravatedly.

"As you can see, YOU don't sink into the snow, moron. Now give me the bigger skis," it said as it turned back to Taube.

Taube seemed a little confused, but tossed the skis to Envy. Envy strapped them to its boots and tried moving carefully on the snow with them. It obviously still sank down a great deal, but not so far that moving would become too cumbersome.

"Okay, this works. You five can make do with the other skis."

"How come you sink so easily?" asked Junkers.

"Think about that and don't tell me because I don't care," replied Envy dismissively and gave the man a mean glare.

"Let's not fight about this. You can have the biggest skis, Envy, it's not like their size matters that much," said Russell.

"Pft," mumbled Envy, sounding a little irritated.

After they were done with their snacktime, the soldiers covered the snowmobiles with tarpaulins, left them behind and headed to north on their skis. Envy pulled its equipment and the patrol's tent in a pulk instead of carrying a backpack since that way there was a little less weight directly stressing its skis.

#-#

Sukhaja regained some of her senses a few days after her suicide attempt and proceeded to claim that Envy had raped her. To Major General Armstrong's fortune, the claim did not become public information. Sukhaja did not seem to be particularly damaged and the doctor had not found any marks of sexual violence on her. Nevertheless, Armstrong was concerned about one thing: whether Envy did have some kind of tendency to sexually assault people, since that was a quality she was not ready to tolerate.

Armstrong decided to investigate the issue, and the first thing on that road was to question Dornier and Handley, since they had been the first people to see Envy and Sukhaja. She summoned the two to her office.

"Privates, tell me what happened when you assisted Envy in transporting the prisoner from the tenth quarters are a to the brig."

Handley was eager to begin. "Well, sir, we waited for a really long time for them. When they finally got back from there, we went to the lift and there I noticed that the prisoner was crying. I wondered whether Envy had done something improper to her but – –"

"Improper?"

"Er, you know, like raped her or something. But Envy said that he'd just tricked her and called her an idiot. He does that."

"And you believed him?"

"Er..."

"Sir, it seemed rather suspicious but I think Envy told the truth," said Dornier. "I asked why it took so long and he said that the prisoner had asked him to have sex with him. I don't know what this stuff with a prisoner being held in that place and tricked is about, and she sure was upset, but it didn't seem like Envy'd raped her."

"But you can't be sure."

"Right."

"Oh, you know sir, Envy's really odd," continued Handley. "He seems to be totally uninterested in relationships and stuff. He doesn't even care about magazines! At some points, one would think she's actually a woman, but that doesn't really make sense either. But if she was a woman, she sure couldn't have raped the prisoner, right? ...But wait, all that must mean she is a woman! And a lesbian! It explains everything! Except that... I saw her kissing Shrike just two days ago..."

"Handley, shut up and stop hallucinating," said Armstrong.

"Er, sorry, sir."

"Hrm. All right, go. Please keep this conversation secret for now."

"Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."

After the two men had left her office, Armstrong was annoyed that their words did not truly prove or disprove anything. However, Handley had given her a hint of who she should question next.

Half a day later, Armstrong called Shrike to her office. Once he had arrived, she went straight to the point.

"Shrike, I hear you and Envy are a couple now. Is this true?"

Shrike went a little pale. "Y-yes."

"And do you have sex with him?"

Now Shrike blushed and opened and closed his mouth a few times but did not manage to say anything.

"Should I interpret that as a 'yes'?"

"U-uh..." Shrike just gave a tiny nod and turned to look at the floor.

"Do you like having sex with him? He doesn't hurt you in any way?"

Shrike was rather disturbed and was quiet for some time. "Um, sir... What is with these questions? Why are you...? Should... should I stop being with him – – her – – it?"

"I don't care what you have sex with as long as it doesn't affect your or anyone else's work! I only wish to know whether Envy hurts you."

"Well... no... I mean... sort of... No."

"That did not sound convincing to me."

"O-oh... I didn't mean that... I meant that..." Shrike turned to look at Armstrong again. "It's just that Envy, well, it's pretty cruel and sometimes says stuff that it knows hurts me, but it doesn't physically hurt me much."

"'Much'? So he – – it does hurt you?"

"Eh, no, I meant... It just treated me kind of roughly but... It's really not that big an issue, I mean, it doesn't really... I mean, I'm not really hurt."

Armstrong frowned slightly. Shrike's explanation this far did not prove or disprove anything either and was confusing on top of everything. "Well then, does Envy like having sex with you?"

Shrike was quiet for a moment again. "Sir, shouldn't you ask that from Envy?"

"Shrike, while I am not telling it to you, there is a reason why I'm asking you and not Envy. So answer me."

"Um... Well... y-yes, I guess. I mean, it would decline me if it didn't."

Now Armstrong stared at Shrike fairly intently. "So YOU ask IT to have sex with you? Are you the one who 'initiated' this relationship?" she asked disbelievingly.

Shrike just stood with his mouth partially open, not having a clue how to respond. By now he was getting visibly uncomfortable. He had been too shocked to notice how uneasy he was, but at the moment, the embarrassment started taking over. He turned to look at the floor again. "C-can I leave, sir?" he asked.

"No."

"Uh... Could... could you at least tell me why..."

"Fine, here's one reason. Envy is not human. If it is up to something, I need to know, and you conveniently manoeuvred yourself very close to it. You don't need to feel anxious, what you say is just between us." Armstrong paused. "Is that enough?"

"I... I guess." Shrike lifted his gaze from the floor.

"So, are you the one who started your relationship?"

Shrike came to the conclusion that he did not actually know who had initiated it.

"Shrike?" demanded Armstrong.

"U-um, I-I... I don't know."

"You don't know?" she asked incredulously.

"It's... it was really unclear and I don't remember everything..."

"How the heck can that be unclear?"

"It uh... I remember maybe that it noticed that I was kind of jealous because of the spy thing and I fancied it but thought it wouldn't want to be with me, then it asked something theoretical about having sex but not if I'd like to have it with it and then it said something that it didn't mind sex, so I asked if it was okay with uh..." He trailed off.

Armstrong stared at Shrike. "I take back what I said. That truly was unclear. But it's mostly because you are terrible at explaining."

Shrike looked at the floor. "Sorry, sir."

Armstrong frowned and closed her eyes as she tried to think of a question easy enough for Shrike to answer. "Does Envy ask you to have sex with it, or is it always you who asks?"

He looked up again. "Er, no, but we've just been... together for uh, two days. It um... kissed me a couple of times while some others are watching but I think it did that just to bug me. And the watchers."

Armstrong looked irritated. She did not understand Envy's behaviour regardless of whether it had raped Sukhaja or not. "Okay. If you now stopped asking, what do you think it would do?"

Shrike looked confused. "I don't... I think, maybe it would ask me why."

"You don't think it would ask you to have sex?"

"No..."

"Why wouldn't it?"

"It... it told me that it doesn't care about that."

Armstrong frowned and stared at Shrike again. "Fine. I want you to conduct a test. When it comes back, don't have sex with it for a while. Wait until it asks about that and then tell me how it acted. If it wants to know why, just say you hurt yourself or something. Can you do that?"

Shrike's lips quivered a little but he managed to speak after a while. "Y-yes, sir."

"Good. Don't tell about this conversation to anyone. You may go."

Shrike left without saying anything.

#-#

The routine patrol in the mountains was almost over and the soldiers had made it back to the snowmobiles. Envy had found the trek very annoying, even if most of the time the snow had not been quite as deep as right next to the snowmobiles. It had often considered murdering and eating the others, but once again they were saved mostly by Envy's worry of fiery retribution. It decided that it would never go hiking or skiing in deep snow again. In addition, having to spend time with the other soldiers and being so close to them had been massively irritating. Shrike at least was quiet most of the time and in the service tunnels it only had to suffer him and no one else.

The time was rather late when they finally left checkpoint C and Second Lieutenant Russell was certain that they would have to stop for the night before they could make it to the Fort. Envy sighed annoyedly but decided that it would to try to convince them to go on only when the time was closer to night.

However, right after it had started getting darker, Etrich noticed that the snowmobile he and Envy were driving was very low on fuel. They signalled the other two snowmobiles to stop.

"Why is this thing low on fuel? How the heck could that happen? It was full when we left," said Etrich.

Envy just rolled its eyes. "I asked about this before we left, so I'll just say I told you so. Now can we take some fuel from the other two snowmobiles and put it into this one?"

"Well, we have one jerrycan of fuel over here, that should be enough," said Russell as he took the container out of a compartment in his snowmobile. "But it's getting dark already. Might as well stop and make camp for the night here."

"Psh, sir. Let's keep going. It's only what, four or so hours to go? I don't want to spend another night here in this stupid snow with you."

"It'll be too dark to drive in an hour."

"What are those headlights for, then?"

"Emergencies, mostly. But seriously, we need to see more than the little bit those lights can light. The snow can be foul and it's better to be safe than sorry."

Envy sighed exaggeratedly. "That's all? Darn you... Let's just keep going! I'll drive first and make sure we don't run across treacherous snow, okay?"

"No!"

"Yes! I can see just fine at night."

"Since when can you see in the dark?"

"Since now." Russell looked at Envy, puzzled, and noticed that its usually slitted pupils were now almost completely open. "I have special eyes as you should be able to see."

Russell stared at Envy for a moment. He then turned to the others. "Does anyone else think this is the worst idea ever?"

The other soldiers were quiet. They had to admit that they did not like Envy and would rather like to get back to the Fort, so they would not say the idea was the worst ever. Also, Russell was supposed to be making the decisions. Etrich, who knew Russell better, understood that the Second Lieutenant was just provoking them.

"Heh. Okay then, I guess we can give this night travelling a go. Or can someone really come up with heavy reasons why we shouldn't? No? Check. Envy, you can drive the first snowmobile and I'll come with you to check it goes okay."

"Fine," said Envy.

Russell switched snowmobiles with Etrich and poured the jerrycanful of fuel into the fuel tank.

Envy did not have any trouble seeing in the dimming light, especially since the snow reflected starlight very well and the sky was clear for the most part. Russell still insisted that they should not go full speed, so the trip lasted even longer.

They did not run into any dangerous situations and arrived at Fort Briggs in the wee hours.

#-#

Six days went by while Envy did not wonder why Shrike did not ask it to have sex with him. Finally, when they were standing in a particularly narrow service shaft and Shrike was practically on Envy's lap, it thought to bring up the issue.

"This reminds me... You haven't asked to make love for a while now. What's up with that?"

"Er... I just... kind of hurt myself and I've been waiting..."

"Hurt what? Oh, right." Envy noticed that Shrike was unusually nervous but thought that it was probably because the issue at hand was fairly intimate on human standards. Besides, even if he was lying about something, Envy could not bring itself to be interested in that. "Silly humans, you're so ridiculously vulnerable."

"Uh. Well I'm ...almost fine now, so maybe we could do it tomorrow? Or maybe the day after that..."

"Right."

#-#

Later Shrike made his way to Armstrong's office.

"Er, sir... Envy asked about the lack of sex earlier today. And well, it just asked why."

"Hm. Could you elaborate that?"

"Um... Well, after it asked, I said it was because I hurt myself and then it said humans are ridiculously vulnerable, and then I asked if it wanted to do it tomorrow and it said 'right'."

"It said 'right'? That sounds rather anaemic."

"I-I guess."

Armstrong was irritated again. "So, it's not truly interested in having sex, but does so if you ask. Envy doesn't exactly like humans, so why would it do that with you?"

"Eh... I don't know."

"Are you really sure that it actually likes doing that?"

"Uh. I really don't think it would do that if it didn't like that."

"Does it LOOK like it enjoys that?"

Shrike blushed and looked down. He could think of nothing except how much he did not want to answer these questions. "Sir... if you want to know, why don't you... um, see for yourself..." Shrike did not even look at Armstrong before he already apologised for suggesting such a thing. "Er, s-sorry, sir."

"Hmph. Fine, that's all. Just one piece of advice: before you get emotionally attached to it, remember that it can betray your trust at any point. So if and when it does that, don't be too surprised. Dismissed."

After Shrike had left, Armstrong kept staring at the door. Based on Shrike's comments, it at least seemed very unlikely that Envy would rape anyone. That thought alleviated her worries, but she did not understand why Envy would act the way it did.

She pondered Envy's nature. Its mind seemed to be pretty much like that of a mean-spirited preteen. Enjoying causing pain to others, having precious little self-control, lacking empathy and thinking of itself as special, grown-up and better were all the qualities of an inconsiderate adolescent. Its behaviour was often immature and childish, though it did have knowledge and the capability to act quickly and reasonably, so it could seem precocious in its own way.

From a simple psychological point of view, Armstrong managed to make a conclusion about Envy's demeanour: like a regressed preteen or child, it caused trouble instead of being interested in sex and was incapable of true and deep relationships.


	16. Choices

Now that Major General Armstrong had concluded her investigation of whether Envy had raped Sukhaja or not, she finally decided to ask Envy about it so see what it would say about the issue. Two days after Shrike has given her the results of his test, she called it to her.

"So, what's this about? If it's about the mess thing, that guy started it," it said.

"No. Though now that you brought it up, do try to control yourself better."

"Eh."

"What I want to know is whether you raped Sukhaja, the spy."

"What? No. She asked me to have sex with her."

"She says you raped her."

"Sir, that is preposterous. You don't believe her over me, do you?"

"You said she asked you to have sex with her. Did you do it?"

"Sure. I wasn't planning on doing it, but after she suggested it, I thought it would be a funny thing to do. See, she'd feel even more betrayed after all that sweet loving."

Armstrong's gaze changed into a slightly more disapproving one as she stared at Envy.

"Well, I COULD say that I agreed to have sex with her because I wanted to check that she didn't have any concealed weapons or anything in her or in her clothing. But I only thought about that halfway through."

"Hrm. While I do think she's lying, I want to remind you that I will not tolerate sexual assaults."

"No problem, sir!" shouted Envy in a slightly irritated tone. "Raping people isn't exactly a funny way to hurt them anyway. It's way too messy and physical, ugh."

"Hmm? If you find such physicality so distasteful, why did you have sex with her?" After she had asked her question, she realised that the way Envy had phrased its reply implied that it had raped people before.

"So that I could hurt her little feelings, didn't I just say that? And the physicality isn't that bad when I'm not getting hurt."

"You just implied you have raped people. Is that true?"

"Sure!" it started and wondered whether she would believe it. "It was just twice though. The feeling of power and getting to humiliate and subdue them is pretty awesome, but it's so annoyingly physical, you know?"

Armstrong glared at Envy rather hostilely. "Are you lying?"

"Geez, I was wondering if you'd get it. Of course I'm lying! I've seen a human rape another and even that was just disgusting."

Armstrong could not be sure that Envy was telling the truth now, but she did not even want to know more. Therefore, she decided she was done with her questions about the Sukhaja issue. However, she still wondered what made Envy have sex with Shrike. She thought there was no risk in asking. "Why do you have sex with Shrike?"

Envy seemed a little surprised. "Huh? Who told you THAT?" it asked amusedly.

"Shrike, when I questioned him about this same issue some days ago."

"Oh, I see."

"So why?"

Envy mock-pouted. "And why would I tell it to you?"

"Relationships between soldiers are forbidden."

Envy scoffed. "Yeah right. I know you don't really care about it as long as people do their jobs properly. And I and Shrike do. Shrike is even happier now as far as I've noticed so he ought to do better," it said and rolled its eyes. "That was a poor attempt at changing the topic, too. Are you going to give me a reason or should I just leave?"

"Your actions are very strange and I want to know what is going on with you. But if you're not going to tell me anything, that's fine." Armstrong had noticed that Envy was more likely to do things if she gave it the option to not do them. It usually liked to talk, so if she let it choose, it would more likely pick the option of more babbling.

And Envy did. "Well, fine then! You probably remember that one reason I agreed to come here was because I wanted to try to achieve one of those friendship thingies. Shrike wasn't too annoying and I picked him. It turned out that he wanted to have sex, so I went for it even though it's rather yucky. He sure seems to like me more now."

"Why do you think sex is 'yucky'?"

"Why do you not? Just think about the act and try to tell to my face that it isn't skanky. Remember that this is coming from me. I play with my insides on a daily basis."

"Hrm." Armstrong was not going to go into more details about the issue. "With respect to Shrike, I hope you understand that true trust and friendship are supposed to be mutual."

"Yiish, what a bother!"

"Yes, I expect that you will grow bored of him and betray him eventually. But I don't care how you handle your relationships as long as you don't break the other soldiers." Envy glared at Armstrong with some annoyance. "You can go."

"Pft."

Envy left and as it walked through the halls toward the library, it thought whether there was some point in Armstrong's statement of friendship being mutual. It could accept that relations worked so for humans, but would it really need to like Shrike back for their connection to work properly? Envy felt frustrated. It did not want to truly like Shrike or any human. Could it pretend to like him? Envy thought that it certainly could, but doing that would inevitably lead to a magnificent reveal of its treason – which made Envy smile, but then it would have failed with its goal and Armstrong would have been right. Envy sighed and forwent a decision.

#-#

After the people of Briggs had noticed that Envy reacted with derision to their arguments about its sex, some of them decided to be more frank with their inquiries. However, Envy did not give a satisfactory answer to "Are you a boy or a girl?" either. Since it could, it replied differently each time: "Yes." "No." "Are you a worm or a maggot?" "Are you an idiot?" "Can't you tell?" "Ask Armstrong."

Eventually someone managed to ask the question "Are you an androgyne?" to which Envy replied "Yes and no."

Shrike often thought that he should just explain that Envy was a shapeshifter, but he had no idea how to phrase his words so that he would not sound completely ridiculous. He also knew that Envy did not want the fact to become known so unambiguously. After all, as long as the soldiers did not know of its exact abilities, it could go around creating some minor trouble for its amusement. The other people who knew of Envy's abilities were similarly quiet about them, though that was mostly because they had figured that the more people knew, the more likely it was that the information would leak outside Briggs as well, even though the people at Briggs were usually very good at keeping their internal business just that.

Shrike could keep his distance from the inconvenient questions. What bothered him more was what Armstrong had told him: that Envy would betray his trust eventually. First he just wanted to deny that, but it did not take him even two minutes to see that it would be very ignorant to think that Envy could not do it or would not do it just because he wanted to think that it would not. He knew well enough that while he could not perform such a feat, Envy had proved that it could, with Sukhaja. Envy had of course been obviously deceptive when it was dealing with Sukhaja, but that did not mean that Envy was not deceiving him, and Shrike had no idea if he could ever know whether Envy was honest with him.

He did not know if it would be better to just leave the issues as they were or try to get some answers out of Envy. Trying to fish some proper answers out of Envy was never exactly simple, since it could just dismiss the question, ask why he wanted to know or ask something vaguely related and inconvenient. Still, after a few days of mulling over his thoughts, he decided to just ask. At least it would just be inconvenient at the most. He also thought that by acknowledging that Envy could betray him, he had already prepared for that.

When their shift of ventilation maintenance was nearing its end, Shrike decided to start questioning Envy.

"There's something I want to ask..."

"Oh?"

"I... Well, Armstrong told me some days ago that I shouldn't get too attached to you since you'll just betray me and I've... I've been sort of worried about that. Will you uh... do that to me?"

Envy was mildly inconvenienced and looked at Shrike annoyedly. It did not have a good answer ready since the truth was that it did not even know itself whether it was going to play around that much with his feelings or not. It could either tell the truth of its indecision or lie one way or the other. It chose the easiest thing to say. "No... but I can see why you wouldn't believe me, with what happened to the spy."

Shrike smiled shortly. "Well... I want to believe you, at least."

"Hmh. Is there something that would make you believe it?"

"I have no idea..." Shrike was glad that Envy had said no, but now he wondered what he would have thought if it had said yes or something akin to that. Would that have meant that it did not like him enough? Then again, even if it did not like him, it could have lied. Nevertheless, Envy had not tried to be very convincing as far as he could tell, and he had no clue what that meant. "Um, I just thought of... I mean, we know I like you, but do you like me?"

Envy rolled its eyes a bit. To it, Shrike seemed to be having some sort of existential crisis. Yet, his question was again an annoying one. At the moment, Envy really did not want to pretend to like him any more than it did. "I don't like humans. But at least I can say that of any humans, I dislike you the least."

"Uh..." That was not really what Shrike had wanted to hear. Was there a point in being with Envy if it did not like him much at all? However, he got an idea. "So... is there anything I could do to make you like me better? Well, besides becoming something other than human. Not that I'd really be against that but it probably isn't possible. Though, you said there were chimeras but you don't like them either..."

Envy was rather taken by surprise by Shrike's question. He actually wanted to improve its disposition to him and not just be content with what he was getting. However, Envy did not really know what to ask of him since it had never had to think about such an issue. It could not ask him to kill other humans – or could it? Nonetheless, even if Shrike would agree to it, Envy would first have to teach him how to murder people, and that felt too tedious.

After a moment, Envy just gave up and laughed. "Ha ha! I don't know! Buy me a gift or something," it said with an incredulous smile. "Like chocolate."

Shrike seemed amazed and just stared at Envy. They stood quietly for some time, and then Shrike felt like changing the topic.

"Er, you know, I'm sort of glad that not everybody thinks I'm gay after the stuff we've done in front of others..."

"Heh heh. But the people here don't really care that much about it. A few decades ago it was the hugest thing ever, at least in this one town."

"Yeah, I can imagine... But um, it would have been a lot more convenient if you had been more obviously a woman."

"Well, I bet it would have! Are you bitter about that?"

"Um, I... I guess not really, but I just wonder why you wouldn't... I mean, you do look pretty strange. Wouldn't it just be easier to look more regular?"

"Easier? I suppose so. But I rather look pretty than easy."

"...I, well, I guess so." Shrike seemed a little surprised.

"What, don't you think I look pretty?"

"Yes! I just... didn't consciously think that until now. It's too obvious!"

Envy snickered. "Everybody wants to be young and pretty. I can be, so why not?"

"But wouldn't it work just as well if you were a woman? Or a man..."

Envy shapeshifted its features to look more obviously like that of a woman while keeping all of its recognisable attributes. It grinned at seeing Shrike's confused frown. When it shapeshifted to look like a man, Shrike frowned even more. "So, it doesn't really work, does it?" it said with its deeper voice before changing back to the way it usually was.

"Uh... uh... N-no, I guess not, but... it sort of did but not really..."

"Eh, I know some part of you was just confused because you're used to seeing me like this and any other features would feel wrong because of that. But seriously, I don't see why I should be only a woman or only a man. I've seen and shapeshifted into lots of people who just didn't seem like the sex they had. Heck, your commanding officer Massena is a perfect example already. If she spoke a little lower and had an ambiguous name, I bet most people would just think she's a man. Her form is more masculine than mine when I'm like this. And more masculine than yours, ha ha ha!"

Shrike frowned a little, but there was no use getting upset by the fact. He did not even look too feminine, he was just thin and shorter than most men.

"So yeah, that line between one sex and another sure seems to go mostly in people's heads! You know, I've heard next to twenty questions of 'Are you a boy or a girl?' and when I listened in on people arguing about my sex, it was always just boy or girl. So even if I look this androgynous, people will just assume whatever the heck they want. Though yeah, without breasts and especially in military it's a lot more often on the boy side, but being around with you sure seemed to push it the other way. But there was this one guy who asked if I was an androgyne! It was that friend of yours, Mil."

"Oh..."

"Anyway, I like this form. It's young and pretty and feels like me. Do I really need any other reason for why I look like this? No, I don't!" it stated and grinned.

Shrike smiled a little as well. "I guess you're right."

#-#

After his next small vacation and trip to North City, Shrike brought Envy a sizeable box of chocolate. Even though it had told him to do that, it had not actually expected him to go through with its request – and it certainly had not expected such a large amount of the stuff.


	17. Energy

Three weeks later and almost three months after its arrival in Fort Briggs, Envy was once again eating in the mess with Shrike and Linke. For once, the mess had food that it liked. It was wondering why its trousers felt unusually tight around its waist, and after a few expressions of perplexity and some feeling around, it could only conclude that it had actually gained weight.

Envy was very amused at the thought, though it wondered how it had happened since it had not eaten very much. It guessed that it had modified its energy intake to be much more effective than it thought, though some of the weight had to be due to the copious amount of chocolate Shrike had given it. It then got rid of the weight it had gained by discreetly shapeshifting the mass away.

After they had finished eating and were heading down a hallway, a realisation hit Envy's mind. During the time it had been in Briggs, it had at no point increased its mass. Yet, just a few minutes ago, it had been able to reduce it, which meant that in effect, it was able to turn food into Philosopher's Stone.

Envy stopped walking and as Shrike and Linke turned to look at it, it showed an unusually wide and open grinning expression. "Ha ha ha! HA HA HA! AHAHAHAHA!" it laughed, nearly maniacally.

Shrike and Linke were confounded. Shrike backed further away from Envy. "Uh, what?" asked Linke carefully.

"Ah, Linke, you little potato! You know what? I don't need any stinking humans for my Stone! I can generate it on my own!" it exclaimed happily. "All I need to do it eat too much and then I'll gain some weight and then I can shapeshift that away! Ha ha ha! I am brilliant, wouldn't you say!" it shouted and slapped both men on the back so hard that they fell down on the floor. "He he he! Of course it's painfully slow, but so what! Haha, none of the others could do this because they couldn't do what I can!" Envy spun around and bounced a few times as it wallowed in its happiness and made the floor creak suspiciously under its weight.

In the meantime, Shrike and Linke stumbled upright and stared at Envy. It turned to look at them expectantly.

"Um, wow," said Shrike monotonically, since he had not understood anything about what Envy had said. He acted like he was a little afraid.

"So that means that if you gain weight, you can just shapeshift back to how you were? Well, that's awesome... and makes sense." Linke did wonder why Envy thought that to be so wondrous, since he thought it was obvious.

Envy noticed that Linke had not understood what it had truly meant. Now that its initial enthusiasm was over, it thought that maybe it was better that people did not know that it did not need humans for its Philosopher's Stone. However, the way Envy had said it did not leave too much room for interpretation if Linke would just think about it. Then again, Linke knew next to nothing about alchemy. Shrike probably had a better chance at getting what Envy had said, but knowing him, the sudden shock had already wiped the key points from his memory.

"Isn't it just!" said Envy. It kept on grinning to itself as they continued on their way.

From that day on, Envy ate a lot more than previously and on occasion even took other people's food, which earned a few stern notices and a threat from Blohm and Armstrong. It then negotiated with the cooks that if they had leftovers, it would get to eat the food if the alternative was that the food would be thrown away.

#-#

Now that it ate much more, Envy managed to gain a barely noticeable weight in a week. It shapeshifted the tiny bit of mass into Philosopher's Stone again and started wondering what the souls in its Philosopher's Stone thought of food energy. It decided to make good use of its three-hour resting time and examine its Stone while lying on the most comfortable couch in the lounge area, hogging the thing completely for itself. Of course, most people were spending their nights in their beds, but some night-shifters still looked resentfully at it.

As Envy scrutinised the mess of souls within itself, it recalled how Hohenheim had suggested that it could try to talk to them. What was there to talk about? They would be incapable of any intelligible communication. Envy soon confirmed its prejudices and did not bother to try to talk to the souls any more than that. They had gone crazy long ago, melded into each other, lost their identity. Yet, Envy had some sort of weird feeling about them.

Envy shifted through the undefined soup of souls, wondering whether it should be looking for something. Nevertheless, it did find something: a bare and uninteresting soul-like thing that the other souls both stayed away from and did not even acknowledge. As soon as Envy had understood its existence, Envy found that it liked the thing. It liked the thing unconditionally. The soul-like thing was nothing and everything. It existed just for Envy.

A fundamental realisation dawned on Envy. "This... this... this is MINE! THIS IS MINE! ALL MINE!" it shouted, drawing the attention of all the awake night-shifters and waking up some of the sleeping soldiers. "HA HA HA! I did it!" It then leaped into the bedroom corridor and opened the door to Linke's room. Linke moved a little and was almost awake. Envy jumped right above him on his bed and though it was careful enough to not crush him or any of his body parts, it broke the bed approximately in half. It could not manage to care at the moment. Linke was rather startled and stared at Envy, confused. "Hey Linke, I have created my very own soul! It's all mine! Ha ha ha!"

"Uhh... Wh-what..." He was obviously fuddled with sleep.

"Ha ha! I have a soul! You can take my bed if you want!" Envy got up from the small mess of sheets and wood splinters and flounced its way out of the lounge and into the corridors. It told all three people who crossed its path that it had a soul while making its way toward Armstrong's office.

When it arrived at Armstrong's office, it banged on her door and pushed away the guards that tried to stop it. The guards were obviously alerted but since they were fairly accustomed to seeing Envy and knew that it acted very strangely at times, they did not get violent yet. Rather, they stared at it in confusion.

"Major General Armstrong! Come on, open up! I have the greatest news ever for you! Aaarmstrooong!" shouted Envy. It heard a door open inside the office, and soon enough Armstrong came to open the door behind which it stood. Envy then jumped at her, grabbed her shoulders above her collarbones and bounced in front of her. "I have a soooooul! It's all mine! Ha ha ha!"

Armstrong had her sword and handgun with her and had been about to stab and shoot whoever was disturbing her sleep at this hour, but she managed to hold off. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried hard to make sense of the situation. "WHAT?" she said.

"A soul! Isn't it wonderful?" it said and pulled the open door of her office shut with its foot. "Homunculi don't have souls of their own, you know. But I do now! I just found that out and I KNEW you'd want to know right away. Because it's that magnificent! Aren't you just happy for me?"

"I am THIS close to cutting your head and arms off."

"Sir! That was uncalled for!" Envy took its hands off her shoulders and placed them on its hips. "This is so big you should be more interested."

"IN THE MORNING!" she shouted and turned on her heels. Squeezing her sword, she walked back toward her bedroom.

"Oh fiiine, what a killjoy! Ehhh!" said Envy mockingly, but it did not truly care. It opened the door that led into the hallway and got out. The guards looked at it very suspiciously but decided to let the issue just drop since Armstrong did not seem to have been disturbed that much.

Next, it made its way into the quarters area where Shrike was. It sneaked around the lounge and shushed at the soldiers who tried to talk to it. It then entered Shrike's locked room by picking the lock with its finger and got on his bed carefully enough to not break it.

Shrike had almost managed to come out of his sleep when it started talking. "I have a soooul!"

"Aahhh!" he shouted and startled badly. "Aagh! Envy! What the– –?" he screamed, but not very loudly. A couple of soldiers were following them from the doorway.

Wearing a wide and rather creepy grin, Envy leaned very close to Shrike. "I have a soul!" it whispered.

Shrike stared at it frightfully with his wide eyes but managed to smile a little bit. "U-uhm, that's great," he mumbled. "S-so, um... you didn't have one before?"

"No, homunculi don't have souls. Well, one of their own, that is. But I do now!"

"Really? Uh, interesting... Is this a dream?"

"Nooo!"

"But I thought I locked the door..."

"I picked it, wasn't too hard."

Shrike looked at Envy questioningly for a short moment. Envy, then again, stood up from the bed and went to close the door, leaving three curious pairs of eyes outside.

"Um...?"

"I'm already here, so I might as well stay and sleep for a couple of hours." It lay down on the floor, next to Shrike's bed. "Besides, I broke Linke's bed and gave him mine, so I don't have a bed. Not that I'd have one here or actually need one, but whatever."

"Uh, er... But didn't you once say that you don't need to sleep or something?"

"So? What, are you that uncomfortable if you have to actually sleep in the same room with me? Should I crawl in there with you?" it asked, amused.

Shrike was confused but tried to relax. "So... If homunculi don't have souls, how do you... eh, live? Or did live, I mean, if you have one now. I thought one couldn't live without a soul."

"Maybe you humans can't."

"Oh... But, how did you just create one?"

"In my body, apparently."

"That uh... that doesn't make sense..."

"Come on now! You've studied alchemy, you should know more than this."

"Alchemy? What does that have to do with this?"

"Oh wait, yeah, that stuff is a pretty huge taboo I guess." Envy recalled that Shrike had been clueless when it had said that its true form was red and oval, so he apparently must not have ever heard of Philosopher's Stone.

"Can one create souls with alchemy?"

"No!" Envy laughed. "Though to be honest, I haven't heard of anyone who actually tried to do exactly that. They've only tried to bring old ones back, and THAT goes so well every time."

"Oh..."

"There isn't anyone you'd like to bring back, is there?"

"Er? No, no... Well, maybe my mother since I never knew her but..."

"Good, it isn't like that was possible anyway. Dead people are gone, it's simply impossible to get their souls from anywhere. And Armstrong would go ballistic if she heard I've been telling people they should try to resurrect their dead relatives."

"Where do souls come from, then?"

"Hm? I don't know. I guess they just spawn in favourable circumstances! Heh heh, I spawned a soul."

Even Shrike was amused at the way Envy had put it and chuckled. "So, I guess it's your soul's birthday today. Are you going to make the cooks bake you a cake?"

"Ha ha, I can't think of a better way to feed the little thing."

#-#

Envy had a soul now. As far as it understood, it had created the soul by converting its gained mass into soul energy. Since the energy had not originally been a part of the souls Envy did have, it just accumulated in its own pile. Envy was pretty sure that it had done similar conversion before unknowingly. It guessed that the reason why the energy had started gathering into a separate soul-like entity was because it had not used any of its soul energy to maintain its body in any other way.

Admittedly, Envy did not feel any different now that it had a soul, compared to when it did not have one. Then again, who said it should have felt different?

After its late shift of work, Envy lay on its bed and examined the souls within itself. The other souls babbled on, mumbling about their inane things, gone mad due to their centuries of imprisonment and misuse. It silenced and ignored them. Envy did not know why they did not seem to acknowledge the existence of its own, empty soul that expressed no thoughts. While Envy had no idea what to think about the soul or what to do with it, it liked it unconditionally. The soul just was there, quiet, accepting, malleable and welcoming. It was Envy's own.

Envy wallowed in its self-contentment for quite some time and slept. It woke up early in the morning, before the others, and a thought popped into its mind. Humans could perform alchemy because they all had a Gate of Truth inside them. If Envy had its own soul now, did that mean that it also had a Gate? Envy jumped out of its bed abruptly, grabbed a marker pen and quickly drew a simple transmutation circle on a piece of paper and placed it on the floor. Then Envy dug a simple bolt from the pockets of its uniform, kneeled beside the circle and placed the bit inside.

Anxious, Envy looked at the circle with dread and anticipation. It knew how alchemy was executed. It had looked at the most complex of transmutation circles, seen human transmutation performed and listened to lectures about the theory of alchemy. The bolt was steel. The energy was in the ground or all around it. It should be able to access the energy. The bolt's form would melt and flatten.

Envy pressed its hands on the circle, grinning triumphantly.


End file.
